Page 60 of Stuck with the Hero Next Door

I passed it to him, and our fingers brushed in the exchange. Such a small touch, but it sent warmth shooting up my arm. He looked up at me with a slight smile that suggested he’d felt it too.

“Almost done here. What do you want me to tackle next? Here I’ll get that?”

“Perfect,” I said, though I was looking at him rather than the box he was lifting onto the counter.

By evening, the house was starting to look like a real home. Books filled the shelves, kitchen supplies occupied the cabinets, and the donated blankets and pillows had transformed the old-fashioned furniture into something cozy and welcoming.

I made coffee using my new coffee maker, and we sat on the couch, watching the last of the daylight fade over the fields. Snow was still piled high along the hay bales, but people were out and about again.

Life was returning to normal after the storm.

“Thank you,” I said, carefully curling my feet under me. “For everything. For taking care of me during the storm, for helping me move, for making all of this feel manageable.”

He set down his mug and turned to face me more fully. “You don’t have to thank me, Cassie. This is what people do for each other.”

“Not where I come from.”

“Then you weren’t in the right place before.”

I studied his face in the lamplight—the strong line of his jaw, the gentle way he was looking at me, the calm certainty that seemed to radiate from him like warmth from a fire.

“What happens now?”

“Now you live,” he said. “You keep teaching those kids who clearly adore you. You let your bruises heal and your insurance company sort out the cottage. You take it one day at a time.”

“And us?” The question slipped out before I could stop it, but I didn’t regret asking.

His smile was soft and sure. “Us too. One day at a time.”

He reached over and took my hand, threading our fingers together with the same careful attention he’d brought to stocking my bookcase. Like I was something precious that deserved his best effort.

“I’m not going anywhere, Cassie. Whatever you need, however long it takes—I’m here.”

I believed him. More than that, I felt it—the solid, unshakeable truth of it settling into my bones like warmth.

Outside, Everwood sparkled under its blanket of snow, beautiful and peaceful and exactly where I belonged. Inside, in my new house filled with gifts from my community and the man who’d become so much more than a neighbor, everything felt possible.

Chapter 16

Slow Days, Longing Looks

Levi

December in Everwood moved like honey in winter—slow, sweet, and filled with possibility.

The days settled into a natural rhythm, like something I’d been waiting for without knowing it. Morning coffee at the diner before school, where Cassie always appeared with her grading bag, refillable mug, and a smile that made my chest tighten. Afternoons on the ranch or at the fire station, where I found myself glancing at the clock, calculating how long it would take to drive over to the school.

Evenings stretched long and quiet, filled with comfortable domesticity I’d never thought I wanted until it started happening to me.

Then for three days, the rhythm broke. The department scheduled mandatory fire training out of town, and I packed a duffel and went. It wasn’t far, but it was far enough. The mornings felt off without her in that corner booth, the evenings hollow without her fussing at me about my knife skills in her kitchen. I hadn’t realized how much she’d filled the space of my days until the silence pressed in without her.

When I came back, she tried to play it casual—smiling quickly, busying herself with the pot on the stove—but her shoulders eased the moment I walked through the door. And I knew then: she’d felt the absence too.

Like tonight, standing in her kitchen while she made dinner, and I pretended to be useful by chopping vegetables, both of us moving around each other easily…

. We’d developed this routine over the past few weeks—I brought groceries, she cooked, we ate together, and talked about everything and nothing. It wasn’t a date, exactly, but it wasn’t just neighbors helping each other either.

It was something in between.