“I’m Chrissie,” the curly-haired girl announces, clearly catching on to the mention of her name, but the others are distracted by breakfast and tuck in quickly.
I chuckle as I put down a cup in front of Chrissie. “Well, that answers one of my questions,” I remark, and she gives me a grin. She’s got a lot of Angelie in her, they all do—but she’s not the only part of the equation, as we are all too aware.
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Callum mutters, grabbing a coffee from the counter and taking a long sip. It doesn’t need saying, not right now, but there are a million questions still hanging in the air. A million doubts that have been getting the better of all of us. After I got off shift keeping watch on the map last night, I lay in bed, tossing and turning, trying to make sense out of what happens next, if anything.
“No new alerts, at least?” Callum asks, and I shake my head, pouring myself a coffee from the pot.
“Nothing,” I reply. “Looks like we managed to get the worst of it under control. Got a call from the emergency services down in Harrisonville—they said they would have their guys up here by the end of the week, if we still need help.”
“End of the week?” Callum replies with a grimace. “That long?”
“You know how it is with small towns like this,” I remind him. “They just hope it’s going to burn itself out and they won’t have to handle anything, don’t want to keep their equipment out of the city in case something kicks off down there.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Callum replies, and he leans against the counter, watching as the kids eat. For a moment, quiet settles between us, and I wonder just what the hell is going through his head.
If any one of us is fit to be a father, it’s Callum. I might be the oldest out of the four of us, the one people would look at and most quickly assume had a family of my own, but Callum is grounded, focused when it comes to families. He and Dylan were always the ones put front and center on those missions we needed to evacuate families when we were in the forces, and there was good reason for that.
But me? I don’t know where I stand with any of it. Don’t even know if I want kids.
Though that could have something to do with my own upbringing. My father was a firefighter, same as I am now, though he spent most of his time working on fires across the state. I can’t count the number of times I woke up in the middle of the night to find that he had already taken off to some family a million miles away who he claimed needed him more than we did. Looking back, I can tell it’s the truth, but when I was a kid, all I could think about was the distance between us, the fear of whether or not he would ever come back.
He died young, my dad, young enough that he left me holding the tattered pieces of his legacy—a legacy I was determined tocarry on in any way I could. When Carlisle turned our attention to what else we could do to make a difference in the world, to pay penance for all we had done in the military, there was only one answer to that question that made itself known to me—firefighting.
And as proud as I am to have his legacy to my name, I know this job doesn’t exactly make for a reliable or present father figure. And that, of course, is if Angelie wants me as anything close to a father figure in the lives of her children. Or any of us, for that matter. It’s not like she’s bothered to try and make contact since they came into the world.
Or has she got a plan to tell the children about our existence, take a paternity test and try to squeeze some cash out of whoever is actually the father? I can’t see her being that cynical about it, but then, I couldn’t see her hiding children from us for years on end either?—
“Hey.”
I glance around to see Angelie standing in the doorway, looking surprised at the breakfast in front of her kids. She frowns, glancing between Callum and me, clearly not sure what to make of it.
“You made the kids breakfast…?”
She comes over to check on them, smoothing back Chrissie’s hair absently and reaching out to clear a little egg that had gotten stuck to one of the boys’ faces while they were eating. All four kids light up the minute they lay eyes on her, as though this is what they’ve been waiting for all day. Stephanie holds her arms out, and Angelie leans down to pick her up, balancing her against her hip in what is obviously a practiced motion.
“Thought you could use some rest, after everything that happened,” Callum replies, voice slightly gruff, like he doesn’t want to take credit for it. “That alright?”
“Of course it is,” she replies, smiling. “I—I just can’t remember the last time someone who wasn’t me made them their breakfast, that’s all…”
“You want a coffee?” I offer, and she nods.
“That sounds perfect,” she agrees, as she takes a seat at the end of the table. “Come on, babies, finish up your food—it looks good, right?”
She sips on her coffee, Stephanie occasionally reaching out with interest to try and take the cup from her hand, though Angelie deflects her attempts at thievery with a practiced ease.
“So, um,” she begins, after a long pause. “I was wondering…wondering if I could borrow a car today?”
“What for?” Callum replies at once, chin lifting as he scans her face for explanation.
“I was hoping to take the quads down to stay with my parents and sister in the motel,” she explains. “I can grab some stuff from my place on the way past, provided it’s safe. I just—I don’t want them in Devin Ridge, not if I can help it. Not as long as the fire is still a threat.”
“I’ll drive you,” I reply, hardly thinking twice before the offer is out of my mouth. She looks slightly surprised by how sure I sound. Hell, I’m a little caught off guard by it myself, but I intend to see it through.
“Oh, you don’t have to do that, I know the roads well.”
“Not if the fire has brought some trees down,” I remind her. “I can bring some equipment to clear the roads if we need, and I can help you bring anything you need out of the house.”
“That would be—uh, that would be great, actually,” she agrees. She seems a little taken aback by my offer, or maybe it’s just the combination of that and the way that Callum has already made breakfast for her children before she was so much as awake. If she really has been a single mother all this time, even with the support of her parents and her sister, it must come as something of a shock to suddenly be faced with four guys who want to do what they can to help her.
