AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You have to face your demons.”
“You understand,” he said, relief in his tone.
“Probably not, because I’m not a firefighter. I’ll listen if you want to tell me.”
He spoke for twenty minutes, almost without a break. He told her why he made the decision that he’d made and why he wouldn’t ask anything of her. A few times during the telling, Willow teared up. Could this day get any more emotional?
Yet she understood his reasoning. She supported his rationale. More than anything, she appreciated his honesty.
When he finally ran out of words, she leaned over and kissed him. “Thank you for telling me.”
“You’re cool with it?”
“Honestly, I don’t know how I feel. Like I said earlier, it’sbeen quite a day. So back to my original question. When do you plan to leave?”
“I don’t know. I could go tomorrow, or I could wait a month. I could stay the summer. I could leave now and return for the Christmas-in-July event and the election-night party in August. I’m definitely going to be here for your mother’s birthday. That’s a party I don’t want to miss. But I’ll be honest—I worry that if I stay much longer, I’ll never leave. In the long run, that wouldn’t be good.”
“Stay for Emma’s birthday and then go,” she suggested. “It’s ten days from now. You’d be here to meet Damon Randall that way, and I would appreciate that. Plus, Emma would be sad if you missed her big day.”
“Yeah.” He filled his lungs with air, then blew out a heavy breath. “You ready to hike back to the bike?”
“Almost. There’s something I want to say first. Noah, I have been in love before. I do know what love is. You go to Denver, and you face your demons, and then you come back to me and mine. I love you. We love you. When you are ready, you come back to the Hideaway, and we will welcome you home. We will be your home.”
The morning of Emma’s birthday dawned bright with a cloudless blue sky, although afternoon thunderstorms were forecasted. Rain wouldn’t spoil the fun, because Willow had booked a party room at Cloudy Day Fun Time, the indoor amusement park in downtown Lake in the Clouds.
A former variety store on the town square, Cloudy Day was birthday-party central for the twelve-and-under crowd in Lake in the Clouds. It had bounce houses, indoor zip lines,and ball pits for the little ones. If kids didn’t wear themselves out during the two-hour playtime before moving to the party room for the cake and presents, they weren’t trying.
Noah thought it was a good choice. The distraction was necessary for the Eldridge kids. They’d taken the news that AJ would be leaving at the end of the summer with his uncle Damon, whom they’d met over Zoom, relatively well. But they weren’t at all happy to learn that Noah planned to leave Lake in the Clouds tomorrow. He was scheduled to return to work the following Monday at his old station in Denver.
He couldn’t say he was any happier than Drew and Emma.
He honestly didn’t know if he could do the job.
His situation wasn’t unique. Protocols existed for easing firefighters back into the usual rotation on a timeline they could successfully manage. It may take him a week. It may take him a year. Maybe he’d never have the strength to curb his monsters.
No way to know until he tried.
Wanting to spend some quality time with Willow’s children before he left town, Noah had invited the birthday girl and Drew to a breakfast picnic, after which they’d go fishing at their favorite spot beside the creek. He’d consulted with Willow and chose Froot Loops for the menu.
He tried not to be too disappointed that Emma seemed more excited about the breakfast cereal than the new furniture he’d made for her dollhouse. However, when he brought out the barn he’d made to expand her dollhouse footprint along with the horses he’d carved, everything changed.
“I love them! Thank you, Mr. Noah!” She threw her arms around Noah’s neck and hugged him hard. “I’m gonna miss you so much. I don’t want you to move back to Denver.”
“Me, either,” said Drew with a mouth full of cereal. Heswallowed, wiped his mouth with the collar of his T-shirt, and added, “I know you need to be a hero, but why can’t you be a hero here in Lake in the Clouds? You’re already a hero here.”
“He’s right.” Emma gazed up at Noah and declared, “You’remyhero.”
Drew’s eyes flashed with stubbornness. “No, he’s mine! He saved me the day I got lost in the woods, and I thought I found Santa’s workshop.”
“Well, he saved me that time I heard a monster in my closet,” Emma fired back, folding her arms. “He searched everything and chased it away so that I could go to sleep! So he’s my hero, too!”
“Okay, but what about the time…”
While Drew and Emma squabbled, Noah played with Marigold and the puppies who had crashed the party. He could have told the kids to stop their bickering, but frankly, he liked hearing about his superhero status.
Eventually though, Drew made Emma cry, so Noah sent the boy back to the house for a ten-minute party time-out. Then he distracted Emma from her tears by offering to play horses with her.
The boy was back out exactly ten minutes later with a peace offering for his sister—a plan to build a corral fence for her horses using Popsicle sticks and glue. Emma was delighted by the idea. The three of them then discussed other items they could add to her growing dollhouse estate while they, along with the dogs, hiked through the forest to the fishing spot on the creek. Noah had stashed their fishing supplies there first thing this morning.
