His words cut the same way every time, reopening wounds I’d tried to staunch with work and purpose. I’d lieawake questioning whether he’d been right. Had my very human hesitation, born from confusion and being overwhelmed, cost us something irreplaceable? Or had his immediate assumption that I would leave cost us even more? I didn’t know. But I kept working anyway, kept channeling grief into something productive and real.
On the night before the town council meeting, I sat at my desk and composed a voicemail. My hands shook as I picked up my phone. The words had to be professional, informational, and completely unbiased. Nothing in the message could suggest I was reaching out to win him back or even to ask whether he cared about my choices. Nothing could reveal that my heart was hammering as I lifted my phone to my face.
I called Braden’s number.
When it went to voicemail, as I knew it would, I took a breath and spoke carefully into my phone, my voice steady despite the trembling in my hands.
“Hi Braden, it’s Tessa. I’m calling to let you know I’ll be presenting at the town council meeting about the conservation center. It’s scheduled for tomorrow at seven p.m. at the town hall. The council is voting on whether to grant approval and begin the permitting process. I’d appreciate the community’s support, and if you and your family are willing to attend, it would mean a lot.”
I paused, every instinct screaming at me to add something personal. To ask if he was okay. To tell him I was sorry, to beg him to understand that I never hesitated about him, only about whether I deserved to choose something for myself. “The meeting agenda is being posted tonight on the town website,” I finished quietly. “I hope to see you there. Okay, then. Bye.”
I ended the call and placed the phone on my desk with careful precision, as though sudden movement mightshatter the fragile composure I’d constructed. Then I sat very still in the center of my war room, surrounded by the tangible proof of my reclaimed life. And I waited for him to either call back or confirm what I was beginning to believe—that I was building this alone.
He didn’t call. I hadn’t really expected him to. But I’d hoped anyway, and sometimes hope was its own kind of grief.
Chapter Twenty-Six
BRADEN
The phone washeavy in my hand, weighed down with portent. I thumbed the button, and her voice filled the truck cab for what felt like the hundredth time.
“Braden, it’s Tessa. I’m calling to let you know I’ll be presenting at the town council meeting about the conservation center...” Then, at the end, that pause I’d tried to interpret over and over. Was it hesitation or professional courtesy? “I hope to see you there. Okay, then. Bye.”
Click.
That was it. No anger. No pleading. Just a calm, even tone from a woman I used to know. No mention that she hadn’t taken the job, which said everything. Her voice was the sound of a world moving on. The finality of it was a blade in my gut. I could have handled her rage. I could have tried to mend her tears. But her composure was a closed door, the lock clicked neatly into place.
I was parked at a scenic overlook on the north side of the island, a place that usually calmed the noise in myhead. Tonight, the placid water and the sinking, orange-streaked sun offered no comfort. They were just a backdrop to the wreckage in my chest.
The stillness was suffocating. I needed something real and solid to cut through the fog of my own bullshit. Brenna would be gentle and loving, but that hadn’t worked at the bonfire. I thought of Ben, whose world was stripped of pretense. A world of sirens and pressure bandages, of tangible problems that couldn’t be rationalized away.
I started the truck. Pulling back onto the road, I headed toward the fire station
I found Ben in the apparatus bay, the cavernous garage smelling of diesel and rubber from the tires. He stood by the open side of the ambulance, methodically checking the contents of a blue canvas aid bag.
I leaned against the cold chrome bumper of the fire engine and tried to arrange my face into something casual. “Slow shift?”
Ben didn’t look up. He pointed a finger at a row of neatly organized sterile dressings, counting under his breath. He finished his count, made a note on a clipboard, and then moved to the next pouch. “It’s never slow. Just less hectic sometimes.”
The hum of the bay’s large fan filled the space between us as I watched him work. He had fought his demons and won while I was just discovering the size of my own.
He snapped a latch shut on the bag and finally turned to face me. His gaze was direct, the way it always was, seeing more than I wanted him to. “You look like hell, Braden. What is it?”
There it was. No pretense, no dancing around. His directness was both a relief and an indictment.
“I heard from Tessa, and I could use a sounding board.”
Nodding, he waited.
I caught him up. “I know I need to do something, but I’m frozen. Every time I think about going to that city council meeting tonight and talking to her, all I can picture is the look on her face. The disappointment. I’ll just make it worse.” The rationalization sounded pathetic even to my own ears.
Ben listened with his arms crossed over his chest. He wasn’t a man for platitudes or easy comfort, and I didn’t get any now. “So she didn’t say whether she’s staying or if this is her final speech before leaving?”
I shook my head. “But isn’t it obvious? If she were staying, wouldn’t she tell me? No way, man. This was her plan all along—get the conservation center going before turning it over to others. She's got no reason to stay.”
“So you’re going to let your fear make the decision for her?” The question was devoid of judgment, which somehow made it worse.
I opened my mouth to argue, to defend myself, but he wasn’t finished.
