When it slows and finally stops, the neck points straight back at Noelle.
“Truth or dare, sweetheart?”
She doesn’t even hesitate. “Truth.”
I swirl the wine in my glass, thinking. “Alright then. What’s the first thing you noticed about each of us when we got here?”
Grant groans immediately. “Really? You’re looking for an ego stroke?”
“Oh, come on,” I say. “It’s a fair question. We’re just getting to know each other better.”
Not to mention I’mhighlycurious what Noelle’s opinion of all of us actually is.
She’s never met us before, not in person, anyway, despite all three of us being fixtures in her dad’s life for years.
It’s strange when I think about it.
We’ve known Richard for almost a decade now.
Met by accident, really, when Cal was still in the military.
His unit was assigned to some joint training program for emergency operations, the kind where they teach soldiers to work alongside fire and rescue during crisis responses.
Richard had been a fire chief back then, still in his prime. Cal ended up running point for the squad during the drills.
Within a week, he and Richard were thick as thieves. Two control freaks finding common ground in their love of order and chaos at the same time.
Grant and I were dragged into the mix later. Literally dragged, in my case. I remember Cal calling me after one of the sessions, saying,“We’re going out with the fire chief tonight. Don’t be a jackass, and ghost us. You better show up.”
I did, and the rest was history.
Richard was one of those rare people who made everyone feel like they’d known him forever.
He was easy to like: gruff, funny, big-hearted in a way most men our age weren’t. The kind of guy who didn’t need to say much to make you feel safe just being around him.
Over time, that turned into weekend fishing trips, weekend-long barbecues, endless stories about fires fought and people saved.
When Cal left active duty, the three of us stayed tight with him, even when life started pulling us in different directions.
Grant had been running the ranch solo back then. I was still skating through the last stretch of my hockey career, trying to figure out what came next once I finally retired.
Cal, of course, could never sit still long enough to decide what “civilian life” even meant and eventually ended up becoming Grant’s business partner.
Through it all, Richard stayed in touch. He was the one who always called, always checked in, showed up when we needed him.
We knew Noelle leaving for college hit him hard and had been one of the sole reasons he’d pulled himself out of retirement.
We’ve visited a few times, but we always meant to come visit more often. Jobs and life kept us all busy, and time slipped by too fast.
Until now.
And now that we’re finally here again, sitting in front of his fireplace with his daughter, the same girl whose name used to pop up in Richard’s stories so often she felt like a character we all already knew, I can’t help thinking how strange it feels.
Like I’ve stepped into someone else’s memory.
Watching her now with the firelight catching in her dark brown curls, the reflection of the flames painting her skin in gold, Ican’t shake the thought that Richard would probably kill me for the things crossing my mind.
Actually, he would mostdefinitelykill me.
