Page 17

Emily typed out a message to her mom to check in. She knew her mom had a fireplace and plenty of starter logs. She just hoped that it had been enough.

Then she replied to the nine hundred messages from her friends. The group chat had apparently been active all night, not that she’d noticed. Cassidy had broken the news that Cole was Emily’s assigned firefighter, which Zoe had met with a row of eyeball emojis. Cassidy wanted details. Madison replied with thoughts and prayers and a laughing emoji. Emily scrolled past all of it, typed, Nothing happened, he’s insufferable, moving on, and knew not a single one of them would believe her.

Emily stared at her phone, waiting for a reply, and really tried to ignore Cole back in her kitchen, but all bets were off when she heard him moving her industrial-sized mixer.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked, marching back into the space.

“Storm’s passed.” He was back in his firefighter coat, hand on hip, assessing the situation. “Last night, anything we cleared would’ve filled back in within minutes. Now it stays cleared.”

Cole moved to the back door, turned the handle, and the second the latch released, snow spilled onto the floor.

He braced one hand against the door before it could swing any farther inward and unload the drift into her kitchen. “Here, hold this.”

Wind hit the building. The door shuddered under his hand, sending more snow cascading into the kitchen.

“Emily.”

She stepped in beside him, pressing both hands against the door while he bent down to scoop the fallen snow with her dustpan. The second she took his place, she felt the pressure on the other side. The door was holding back half the alley.

“Oh,” she said, before she could stop herself.

Cole glanced up. “Yeah. Oh.”

He looked up at her, dustpan in hand. “So, unless you want a snowbank in your kitchen, we do this slowly.”

He started shoveling.

Emily held the door and watched Cole get to work. She told herself she was only watching because she had no choice. There was nowhere else to look.

So, she watched. Watched the way he worked in steady, controlled motions, shaving away the packed drift inch by inch. Watched the flex of his shoulders beneath the turnout coat every time he lifted a heavy load of snow into the mixer bowl.

She shifted her weight as the snow continued to press down from outside. The force was unrelenting. Emily shoved back, boots sliding half an inch on the damp floor.

Cole’s head snapped up. “You got it?”

“I’ve got it.”

“You sure?”

“I said I’ve got it.”

The look he gave her said he didn’t believe her, but at least he kept his mouth shut.

The next few minutes passed in a miserable rhythm. Cole dug. Emily braced the door. Snow thudded into the bowl, then he dragged the bin over to her floor drain. Snow and ice turning into slush on her kitchen floor. Her fingers started to ache from the cold seeping through the wood, but she refused to let go, because letting go would mean admitting he had been right about the door.

And Emily refused to let him be right.

Somewhere outside, beyond the thick wall of snow and wind, an engine growled.

Emily froze. “Did you hear that?”

Cole paused, listening.

The sound came again, low and rough, followed by another.

“Snowmobiles,” he said.

Relief hit her so fast she nearly lost her grip on the door.