Colby watched her carefully."How does it feel when you say it out loud?"
"Terrifying," she said honestly.
"And?"
"And..."She searched for the right word."Good.It feels good.Like maybe there's something on the other side of this besides just...loss."
He smiled back at her, slow and genuine, the expression transforming his face."There it is."
"There, what is?"she asked.
"Your first real smile," he said."I've seen a lot of brave faces from you since this started.A lot of holding it together.That one's different."
She lifted a hand to her mouth, as if she could feel the shape of it."It's just an idea.It might be crazy.It might be impossible."
"Every good thing starts as just an idea," he said."Doesn't mean it's easy.Doesn't mean it won't be hard as hell.But it's something to build toward.That matters."
She looked back at the land.The rise, and clearing, and trail disappearing into the trees.The burnt-out house behind them, smaller now against the scope of possibility.
For the first time, the ruins didn't swallow everything else.
Possibility threaded through the grief, bright and fragile as new growth after fire.
"I don't know how I'd do it," she said."Money.Plans.Permits.Insurance battles.All of it."
He nodded."We'll figure it out."
"We," she echoed.
"We," he confirmed.No hesitation.No qualification.
She let the word settle in beside the spark of an idea.New cabins rising from the land.New guests finding their way here.New stories filling notebooks left on porches.
Her heart hurt.It likely would for a long time.
But as she stood on her grandparents' land, with Colby at her side and a tiny, stubborn flicker of hope igniting in her chest, she understood something important.
Her history had burned.
Her future had not.
ChapterSix
The cupboard door bumped shut before Colby opened his eyes.
For a moment, he lay still in the gray light of early morning, trying to place the sound.Not the bunkroom at the firehouse with its familiar creaks and the distant snoring of whoever drew the cot nearest the door.Not the Copper Moon Hotel, where the walls held a distant hum of climate control and the occasional shuffle of guests in the corridor.Not the cheap month-to-month rentals he'd bounced between before landing here.
Then came the faint clink of ceramic against the counter.The soft hiss of his old coffeemaker heating up, water beginning to gurgle through the reservoir.
Right.His house.With Sabrina in it.
The realization settled into his chest like warmth spreading from a banked fire.He'd offered her the spare room without thinking twice, the way he'd offer anyone in trouble a hand.But now, with the sounds of her moving through his kitchen drifting down the hall, the reality of it felt different.More real.More permanent than a single night's shelter.
He sat up, scrubbed a hand over his face, and checked his phone.The screen glowed with a time earlier than he'd usually bother on a day he wasn't on shift or scheduled at the shop.Normally, he'd roll over, catch another hour, let the morning come to him slowly.Instead, he found himself listening.
Cupboard.Drawer.The soft rhythm of bare feet on wood floors.
He pulled on sweats and an old T-shirt from the pile on his chair, tugging it over his head as he padded down the short hallway toward the kitchen.
