“That wasn’t very nice,” his dad said.
Mark shrugged, hiding the emotion her presence had kicked up, her final words cutting more than he thought they would. “She never was very nice, was she?”
“I wasn’t talking about her.”
Mark frowned. “Excuse me?”
“C’mon, Ivy,” Brian said. “Let’s go get your coat and things.” He took Ivy’s hand and disappeared up the stairs with the baby. Steph stayed put.
“Dad, give him a break,” she said. “What was she thinking, coming over here and telling him he looks good?”
“Gee, thanks,” Mark said.
She looked at Mark. “You know what I mean. It took all I had not to tell her what she could do with those boots—”
Dad cut her off. “Nothing gives Mark the excuse to use what he’s been handed to . . .” He trailed off.
“Hurt someone?” Mark finished for him. “Make them uncomfortable? Ashamed?” He fought to lower his voice as a few people looked their way. He stepped closer. “Like they’re not worth the effort?”
Dad folded his arms across his chest. “The word is intimidate. And no. Never. Do you feel any better?”
Mark didn’t have to replay the look of aversion on Caylin’s face. He felt like he’d been kicked in the gut twice over. He was over her. She’d just made an easy target for the anger that still roiled up inside him on occasion. And no, he didn’t feel better. Bugs on a windshield felt better than he did.
“If you ask me, she had it coming,” Steph said.
Mark and his dad turned to her.
“What?” she asked, wide-eyed. “Sure, he could’ve taken it on the chin, helped her feel good about her magnanimous journey all the way across the auditorium. But our boy’s got some fight. I, for one, am happy to see it.”
Dad sighed.
Steph reached for Mark’s arm. “Forget her. She’s not worth a fraction of you.”
He lifted his gaze, the right side of his face to the shadows. “I bet you say that to all the burn victims.”
“Only the heroic ones.”
Mark remembered his time in the burn unit. “That’s all of them.”
Later at the house, Mark pulled an envelope from the pile of bills on the front table and retreated to his old room. After leaving the hospital, he’d moved out of the apartment he shared with Jay in Wenatchee and back home to focus on his recovery. Twenty-seven years old and living at home. He was waiting for a sign that it was time to move out, but he couldn’t bring himself to look for an apartment—or a roommate. Besides, his dad needed his help with the property. It was a big house for just one man; it was a big house for two.
He clicked on the desk lamp with a flick of his finger. He opened the envelope and pulled out the contents. Smoothing out the paper, he saw a boldly scrawled picture of a man in a yellow shirt and hat holding a small boy on his hand like a tray of dishes. Around them, a giant red fire loomed with tiny scary faces drawn on each flame. Above the figures in blue crayon it read, “Firefighter Mark saved me from the fire.”
Mark pulled out a shoebox from the top shelf in his closet. He added the picture to the nearly full box and put it away. He brushed his teeth and undressed for bed. After sitting for some time with his head in his hands, he pulled himself up, twisted the lid off his skin cream, and began the necessary ritual of tending his scars.
Riley shut the front door of her new-old house and locked it. She’d been lucky to even find a house in this tiny town, let alone one on this avenue with its small but stately old homes. The house was definitely “historical,” complete with a solid oak front door and a real glass doorknob that occasionally fell off on the outside. She’d have to get a dead bolt for better security, though she suspected she was the only person on her street who bothered with locks. Miracle Creek seemed to be stuck in a past decade, and she liked it that way.
Unlike other homes on the block, Riley’s house hadn’t been kept up, languishing for years on the market. Her parents had been skeptical, but she knew what she was doing. She’d gotten a great deal on the house, and her family had renovated a few fixer-uppers before. Plus, she’d studied the real estate market in Washington. The location might have been rustic, but being surrounded by national forests, skiing, and just a few miles from the alpine destination village of Leavenworth reflected in property values. Riley was sure she could make a profit, whether she stayed here long-term or not.
She shivered and rubbed her arms. The old place needed a lot of work. The previous owner had considered getting new vinyl windows retrofitted to replace the drafty originals but had hesitated because “they just didn’t make dimpled glass like that anymore.” She had to agree; they did not.
As charming as the original windows were, winter had come to the Cascade Mountains, and she was going to have to get some of those plastic insulation kits from the hardware store to cover up the dimpled glass. She had a lot of things in her skill set, but changing out hundred-year-old windows was not one of them. She’d have to hire someone to update the windows. In the meantime, she’d wear more sweaters.
That feeling returned—the one that had her questioning her decision to take this teaching job in a tiny town in the middle of a state she barely knew and buying this old house when she wasn’t even sure she wanted to stay.
You know exactly why you left.
