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“Good girl.”

There’s a pause.

“Say that again,” she says, “and I’m going to have to come over there.”

I laugh out loud behind the station in the wind.

“What are you doing today?” I ask.

“I have a funeral at eleven at the Huntsville chapel. Then I’m done. The shop’s closing early because of the wind. Bonnie says it’s going to blow the petals off everything.”

She pauses. “And then I’m going to call her. Today. I swear on my grandma’s ashes. After the funeral, when I get home, I’m going to sit on my couch and make the call.”

“You want me there?”

“You’re on shift.”

“I can be on the phone.”

She’s quiet. Then she whispers, “Travis, that’s the sweetest thing ever, but you need to focus on working a red flag day.” Her voice softens. “I’ll call you right after. And then you can hear everything. I promise.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” Another pause. “Travis?”

“Yeah.”

She’s quiet on the line. Her breathing. The bell over her door. The wind.

“Be careful,” she says.

“Always.”

“I mean it. Come home to me.”

I close my eyes. There’s a hot, burning sensation inside my chest. “I will,” I say.

We check the brush truck. We check Engine 1. At 1100, Nate drives to Rocco’s and comes back with four large pizzas, and we eat them standing in the bay with the doors open so we can watch the sky.

It looks worse and worse. The wind is blowing hard enough now that the station flag is standing straight out, snapping like a rifle shot every few seconds.

Caleb finds me behind Engine 1 with a rag, wiping down a nozzle that’s already clean.

“Raines,” he says. “My office.”

His office is a desk and two chairs and a filing cabinet with a dead cactus on it that Cassia keeps threatening to replace. He sits down. He doesn’t ask me to. I stand.

“Sit,” he says.

He slides a piece of paper across the desk. It’s my probationary evaluation. Ninety days, it says at the top. It’s been eight weeks, not thirteen.

At the bottom, in Caleb’s blocky handwriting, are the words Recommend permanent appointment, pending board approval. With his signature.

I look up at him.

“County board meets Tuesday,” Caleb says. “It’ll go through. They do what I tell them.”

Man. I didn’t expect this. Not yet.