Page 62 of Falling for My Grumpy Fireman

I hit it.

One ring. I hang up before the second. Heart going like I made entry on a working fire. Hands shaking on the wheel of a truck that isn't moving.

"Coward," I say to the windshield. Her voice, not mine. Coward, following me out of that bedroom with a washcloth still in her hand.

An hour later, coming back from a supply run, I pull off on the shoulder of Route 9. Not the station, not the farmhouse, a stretch of fence line that doesn't belong to anybody — and dial again before I can talk myself down.

This time I let it ring.

"Doc McKinly." Calm voice. Older.

"Yeah, hi. My name's—" And then nothing. My name. Ten seconds and I can't get my own name up my throat.

He doesn't rush me. "Take your time. Ain't going anywhere."

"Owen," I finally get out. "Peterson. Willowbend FD. Tater Monroe gave me your number."

"Monroe." I can hear him smile a little. "All right, Owen Peterson." A chair creaks on his end. "Tell me one true thing. Doesn't have to be the big one."

I look out at the fence line. At the heat coming up off the blacktop.

"I lost my wife in a fire two years ago," I say. "And last week I was happy for one night, and I ran from it like the building was coming down."

Quiet on the line. Not empty quiet. Listening quiet.

"That'll do," he says. "Thursday, four o'clock. Come as you are."

I sit on that shoulder a good five minutes after we hang up, staring at nothing, feeling like I set down something I've been carrying so long I forgot it had weight.

Doesn't fix anything. But I made the call before I knew one single reason a man would have to. That part's mine.

***

Thursday comes and goes. I'm not fixed. But I sleep four hours straight, which is a record, and Friday I catch myself rehearsing in the truck's side mirror like an idiot.

"Nellie. The cold thing wasn't about you." Stop. Start over. "I need you to know—"

I'm three sentences into an apology with no audience but my own reflection when my phone buzzes on the dash.

DEBBIE SUE: Are you with Nellie??

Two question marks. Debbie doesn't do two question marks.

ME: No. Why.

The three dots come up right away. Stop. Start again. Stop.

I watch that bubble like it's a heart monitor. Like it's telling me something before the numbers do.

"Come on," I say out loud, to nobody.

The dots come back one more time — ten full seconds, like she's writing something and deleting it and writing it again —

Then they stop for good.

Nothing.

I call her. It doesn't even ring. Straight to voicemail, which means the phone's off, and Debbie Sue Monroe's phone has not been off one time in the twelve years I've known her. That woman answers in church.