Page 26 of Falling for My Grumpy Fireman

"Going once," Tater hollers. "Going twice."

I am hissing threats with no air behind them. I am medically unable to feel my face.

"SOLD! To the Willowbend General nursing staff, for four hundred and eighteen dollars and a book of car-wash coupons!" Tater leans into the mic, savoring it, the absolute ham. "And the table loses its mind. Somebody's shaking a pom-pom that came from God knows where.

Debbie leans into my ear over the noise, counting what's left of the cash fan.

"Good news. We came in under budget." She tucks the bills into her bra. "There's enough left over for a nice lunch. Or a cheap motel. Whichever you prefer."

"Debbie."

She winks at me and starts clapping.

able designates their lunch date as... NURSE NELLIE GREER!"

The spotlight swings.

It finds me the way a code alarm finds you at the end of a double shift. Two hundred faces turn at once. Millie's flash goes off. Debbie is back on the chair, arms up, taking her ovation like she won a title fight, and somewhere in the noise I hear the word "Alaska" leave my own mouth to no one.

I should be planning her death. I should be calculating how far four hundred eighteen dollars goes at fifty cents a car wash. I should be doing anything but what I'm doing, which is looking at the stage.

Because here's the thing about a spotlight. It works both ways.

Somewhere to my left, the syndicate is counting four hundred and eighteen dollars into a basket, tens and coupons and all. During the bidding, Owen's eyes did one lap of our table. Cash, Debbie, me.

They're not doing laps anymore.

He's looking straight down the beam of that spotlight at me. The whole barn is roaring around him, and Tater's smacking his shoulder, and the stars are wide open overhead, and his face.

His face is not horror.

That's the entire problem.

Chapter eight

Mutual Aid

OWEN

The whole town knew about this date before I did.

That's the only explanation for the Willow Mug at noon on Sunday. Every booth full. Every head bent over pie nobody's eating. Hank Marlow hasn't turned a page of his sports section since I came through the door.

Nellie's already at the corner table when I walk in.

Of course she is. Fifteen minutes early, sitting where she can see the door, menu closed in front of her like she's done with it and me both.

She's out of scrubs. First time I've seen it. Jeans and some soft green thing, and every neutral remark I lined up in the truck goes out of my head at once. I knew. Under all that hospital cotton, I knew. Knowing didn't prepare me one bit.

I cross the diner, and my hand goes for the back of her chair. To pull it out for her. Like my mother taught me.

Like she isn't already in it.

The chair scoots an inch with Nellie still on it.

"I'm sitting," she says.

"I see that."