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He leans back in his chair. “You read ground better than any man I’ve worked with in twenty years. You keep your mouth shut and your eyes open. Novak follows you around like a duckling. Devin hasn’t tried to kill himself on a call since you showed up, which is a first.” He pauses. “And you unpacked.”

“Rob tell you that?”

“Lindsey told Marlene. Marlene told everybody.” The corner of Caleb’s mouth moves, which for Caleb is a belly laugh. “Small town, Raines.”

I look at the paper again. My name. His signature. Effective immediately.

Six months ago I was sleeping four hours a night in a rented room in Grand Junction, framing houses for a guy who paid in cash and never learned my first name.

I didn’t own anything I couldn’t throw in the back of a truck in ten minutes.

“Thank you, Chief,” I say, sounding choked up.

“Don’t thank me. Earn it.” Caleb stands up. “That’s the end of the meeting, and Raines, it’s about time.”

When I come out of his office, Rob is leaning on the doorframe of the kitchen, grinning like an idiot.

“You knew,” I say.

“Sure did.” He pushes off the doorframe and comes over and stands in front of me, and his grin fades into something serious. “Sarge. I need to ask you something.”

“Don’t call me Sarge.”

“I’m going to call you Sarge for this one.” Rob takes a breath. He looks over his shoulder to make sure the kitchen’s empty. Then he takes a little velvet box out of his pocket and opens it. A plain gold band with one small diamond. “I bought it in August. I’ve been carrying it around ever since like a fool.”

I look from the ring to him.

“I’m going to ask her,” Rob says. “Not yet. When it’s right. I don’t know when. But when I do, you’re the first call I make after. You.”

He snaps the box shut. “Because none of this would have happened if you didn’t get me home.”

I can’t say anything. Twelve years ago, Rob Wallace was a nineteen-year-old private who threw up on his boots on his first patrol, and I told him to wipe his face and keep his eyes up.

Eleven months later, on the worst day of his life, I got him home, and I told him I didn’t want to see his ugly face in a war zone again. He listened.

“Okay,” I say, my voice rough with emotion. “Yeah, Rob. I’ll pick up.”

Rob Wallace hugs me in the station hallway, where Novak and Nate can see us from the bay. He uses both arms and slaps my back hard enough to bruise.

“Don’t make it weird,” Novak calls from the bay. “Oh, shit, you’re making it weird.”

“Shut up, Pinky,” Rob and I say together.

At 1230, I text her. How was the funeral?

At 1242 she writes back. Sad. Pretty. The family loved the lilies. I’m driving home now.

At 1245: Call me when you call her.

She sends back a sunflower emoji.

At 1310, I check my phone again. Nothing. At 1340, nothing. The station sits in a weak spot, one bar on a good day, and the wind isn’t helping.

I’m standing in the bay with Rob, going over the radio channels for the third time, when the power goes out.

Every light in the station cuts out at once. The bay doors stay open. Outside, the traffic light at the corner blinks out. Marlene comes out on the porch of the diner across the street, with her hands on her hips, looking up.

“Generator,” Caleb says, already moving.