“Always do. Not that it helps.” She gave me a crooked grin, clearly trying to lighten the mood.
“Not funny, Harmony,”I replied, but I felt my lips tug at the corners.
“We have to laugh, Eric, or else I’m going to cry. My own brother thinks it’s okay to terrorize me. I get that I turned on my family, but I wanted a better life. Is that so bad? I’m not a criminal. I don’t want to hurt people,” she said and her voice shook.
It took everything inside me not to take her in my arms and hold her until we both relaxed. But she wasn’t mine to hold. Instead, her lips lifted, tired but teasing, like she was daring the world to push her again. I wanted to tell her how worried I had been when I heard what happened. How every siren I heard onthe way back was a second too long, not knowing if she was breathing.
Instead, I just nodded. “You did good, Sunshine.”
Her head tipped, confusion flickering into something softer. “That’s twice in a week, Eric.”
I smiled and felt that familiar ache in my chest when she was close by. I know she apologized for leaving, but it didn’t seem like enough. We were close, she could’ve been open with me. Instead, she took off without a second glance. What were we supposed to be now? Friends?
“Yeah, well, it felt right. You’re the sunshine to their sins,” I said.
She blinked and dipped her chin like my words had hit her hard. I heard her soft intake of air and placed my finger under her chin, guiding her to look at me.
“Don’t ever apologize for who you are,” I said to her.
“I don’t,” she replied with a smile. “I just wish you weren’t the only one who knew me so well. The people in this town think I’m evil.”
“You’re not evil, Harmony. They’re just too blind to see how kind and caring you are,” I said to her. This was going too far. I was saying too much, but she was a nervous wreck and I wanted to assure her. Or maybe I wanted to assure myself.
She licked her lips, and it took everything in me not to dip my head and claim them, but I didn’t even know if she still felt that way about me. Just because I wasn’t over her didn’t mean she wasn’t over me. And where was my head going? I could not trust her. That was key here. She could leave again.
Becket’s voice cut through the doorway. “Power’s back. I’ll file the report. Eric—go home.”
I nodded without taking my eyes off her. “Get some rest.”
“Try not to save the whole town tonight,” she teased with a small smile that made her green eyes glow.
I smiled, small. “No promises.”
Outside, the air still hummed with left over rain and electricity. I climbed into the truck and let the heater blow, knuckles white on the wheel. Through the windshield, I watched her silhouette move behind the counter, slow and steady, the way she’d always moved through wreckage. I’d spent the day pulling strangers out of floodwaters, but the only person I couldn’t stop thinking about was the one I hadn’t been there to save. The storm was ending. The streets were quiet. And somehow, that felt worse.
CHAPTER 8
Harmony
The next morning, Val-Du-Lys smelled like wet earth and woodsmoke. The storm had dragged half the trees across Main Street and left puddles deep enough to swallow boots. The gutters still hissed, but the air had that washed-clean feeling, like the town had survived something it hadn’t expected to. Sandy texted at dawn that we wouldn’t open the shop today.Go help where you can,she’d written.We’ll fix the storefront tomorrow.So I did.
By ten, I’d tied my hair back with a scrunchie and joined the group clearing debris near the square. We worked until our arms burned, passing splintered branches into piles, sweeping up glass from a cracked lamppost. People called out hellos between tasks, half-smiling, half-exhausted. It was the kind of morning that reminded me what a small town really was—messy, tired, but still showing up. I was hauling a wet planter across the street when a familiar voice called, “Careful, Sunshine.”
I turned, and there he was. . . Eric with his backward baseball cap, thick flannel jacket, and jeans that hugged his thighs in a way that looked downright sinful. He had been a big guy in high school but he filled out more over the years we’d been apart.His muscles were larger, his shoulders wider. He was loading branches into the back of a truck. Even tired, he looked steady, like the storm hadn’t touched him at all.
“Morning.” I smiled, setting the planter down. “Didn’t think I’d see you out here.”
“You say that like I don’t know how to hold a shovel,” he grinned.
“You run a bakery,” I teased. “Your hands make pie dough, not firewood.”
His mouth curved, low and quiet. “Harmony, I run an orchard and the bakery. My hands are very used to multitasking.”
It seemed like there was inuendo in that comment and something warm flickered in my chest, unexpected and too familiar. Maybe because I knew how good the eighteen-year-old version of him had been with his hands. I pushed those thoughts away. He was being cordial, dare I say, friendly. I would take what I could get because I didn’t have many friends around here. We worked side by side for a while, stacking debris. The silence between us wasn’t awkward it just hummed, like we both remembered how to move together. Every so often our arms brushed when we bent for the same branch. I told myself it didn’t mean anything. My pulse disagreed.
A car door slammed behind us. Becket’s cruiser rolled to a stop, tires hissing in the puddles. He leaned out the window, eyes scanning the street before landing on me.
“You have a minute?” he asked.
