Page 23 of Falling for My Grumpy Fireman

And it didn't sound like an answer.

It sounded like a warning.

Chapter seven

Sold to the Table in the Back

NELLIE

Nobody warned me about the roof.

I've been in this barn for ten minutes, and I keep tipping my head back like a tourist, because somebody cranked the whole top of the building open and the dance floor is sitting under actual stars. Real ones. Texas-sized, show-off stars, hanging over the fairy lights and the band and two hundred people in their Saturday best.

"Who builds a barn a sunroof," I say.

"Rue." Debbie Sue hands me a plastic cup of wine like it's a work assignment. "Her gran and grandpa Henry built the barn way back. Rue put the roof in when she came home and fixed the whole place up. So people can see the stars while they dance."

I take the wine. In my defense, I tried to stay home. I had a plan involving a couch, a frozen pizza, and a documentary about a cult, which is my idea of romance. Debbie showed up at my cottage at six with a dress over one arm and no intention of leaving without me.

She holds the dress up against me and sighs.

"What?"

"Nothing. Some of us just pray for a shape like that, is all." She tugs the zipper down. "I nursed twins and got a pancake situation. You got that."

"You can have it. It never buttons."

"Buttons are for women God didn't bless." She pushes the dress at me. "Put it on before I cry about it."

The dress and I had words in my bathroom. It has opinions about my hips. I have hips. We went two rounds with the zipper and reached a settlement, and the dress got the better lawyer.

So now I'm at a bachelor auction. In the dress. Which fits, which is suspicious, because I never gave anybody my size.

The Hall is packed wall to wall, and half the crowd doesn't match the other half. Linen suits. Real jewelry. The kind of tan you buy.

"Debbie." I lean in. "Who are all these people?"

"No idea." She goes up on her toes and hollers across three tables. "TATER. Who are all these people?"

A big man peels away from the stage and comes at us grinning. I'd know him anywhere from Debbie's phone background, which is him asleep in a kiddie pool. He is wearing a bolo tie. On purpose.

"You must be the famous Nellie." He shakes my whole arm, elbow included. "Tater Monroe. My wife talks about you more than she talks about me."

"He's not wrong," Debbie says. "The people, Tate."

"Grant Walker's doing. Invited half of Dallas down, and half of Dallas showed up." He rubs his hands together. "And get this. Grant's matching whatever we raise tonight. Dollar. For. Dollar." He looks over at the Dallas tables the way a man watches a brisket come up to temp. "I gotta go emcee. Don't bid on anything you can't afford, ladies."

And he's gone, bolo tie swinging.

I recognize maybe a third of the locals, which after six weeks is a personal record and a violation of every rule I have. There's the couple from the catfish ranch. There's the tech guy who's somehow dating the woman from the cooking channel my mother watches.

And there, at a corner table, is a tiny woman in her sixties waving me over like we're old army buddies.

"That's Millie," Debbie says, following my eyes. "Do not make eye contact unless you have an hour."

Too late.

"You're the nurse," Millie announces, patting the chair beside her. "Sit. I've been hearing things."