"Okay," he said. "I'll try."
"That's all I'm asking."
"That almost sounded like you care," she said, glancing up at him with a hint of a smile.
"Don't get used to it."
But his voice was softer than the words, and from the way her smile widened, she heard it.
They got out of the truck and headed inside, the tension between them easing with each step. Tessa put the peaches in a bowl on the counter, arranging them with the same care she brought to everything. Brian watched her, leaning against the doorframe, trying to reconcile the woman who'd just asked for independence with the woman who'd told him about notes on her windshield and calls in the night.
She was both. Strong and vulnerable. Capable and scared. And somehow, that made him want to protect her even more.
He spent the afternoon on the addition, needing the physical work to clear his head. The framing was almost done now, the skeleton of the guest room taking shape against the side of the cottage. He measured and cut and hammered, letting the rhythm of the work settle him.
Tessa came out around four with two glasses of iced tea. She handed him one and settled into the Adirondack chair on the deck, her book open in her lap.
They existed in parallel for a while, him working and her reading, the afternoon stretching out soft and golden around them. It was comfortable in a way that surprised him. He'd lived alone for so long, had gotten used to solitude as his default state. But having her there, quiet and present, didn't feel like an intrusion anymore. It felt like something he hadn't known he was missing.
"Can I ask you something?" she said, looking up from her book.
He set down his hammer. "Shoot."
"Last night, when we got back from Hank and Bree's, you said you understood what it was like to need a place to land." She closed the book, keeping her finger between the pages. "What did you mean by that?"
He'd known this was coming. Known it from the moment she'd shared her own story in the front seat of his truck. Fair was fair. She'd shown him her scars; eventually, he'd have to show her his.
He picked up his iced tea and took a long drink, buying himself time. Then he walked over to the deck and lowered himself into the chair beside hers.
"I was an EMT for twelve years," he said. "Missouri, mostly. Small towns, rural areas. The kind of places where you're the only help for miles and you see things no one should have to see."
She nodded, waiting.
"There was a call. About two and a half years ago." He stared out at the water, not seeing it. "Car accident on a back road. Single vehicle, wrapped around a tree. When we got there..."
He stopped. The words were stuck somewhere in his chest, tangled up with images he'd spent months trying to forget.
"It was a family," he said finally. "Mom, dad, two kids in the back seat. The parents were gone before we got there. Nothing we could do. But the little girl... she was still breathing. Barely. I held her hand the whole way to the hospital, talked to her, told her she was going to be okay."
"Brian." Tessa's voice was soft.
"She died in the ambulance. Three minutes from the ER." He forced himself to keep going, to get it all out before he lost his nerve. "I did everything right. Every protocol, every procedure. And it wasn't enough. She was seven years old, and I couldn't save her."
Tessa reached over and took his hand. She didn't say anything, didn't offer platitudes or reassurances. She just held on.
"After that, I couldn't do it anymore," he said. "Every call, I saw her face. Every patient, I was waiting for them to slip away, too. I started making mistakes, small ones at first, then bigger. My supervisor suggested I take some time off. I never went back."
"That's why you came here."
"Hank and Colby dragged me here for the Copper Moon Cup. I wasn't going to stay. But Hank found the garage building; he and Colby got excited about it and wanted me here. Then I met the Calloways, and they needed help with their place, and one thing led to another..." He shrugged. "Running felt easier than facing what I'd left behind."
"It's not running if you're moving toward something," Tessa said. "You built a life here. A community. That's not running away. That's starting over."
He looked at her then, at the understanding in her eyes. She knew. She understood the weight he carried in a way most people couldn't, because she carried her own version of it.
"The fire department here has been asking me to volunteer," he said. "I keep saying I'll think about it. But the truth is, I'm scared. Scared that I'll freeze when it matters. Scared that someone will die because I couldn't handle it."
"Fear doesn't make you weak," she said. "It makes you human. The question is whether you let it stop you."
