Page 20 of Never Alone
She took her hand back a beat early.
"Nice to meet you, Cole."
I didn't know what had just happened, but I filed it away.
"How are you and your son doing?"
"Noah. He's okay. He's—yeah. He's okay." She caught the secondokayand slowed herself. "He slept through the night, which I didn't expect. I thought he'd wake up. I kept checking on him."
"Good."
She nodded.
"Have you found a place to stay?"
"Yes. Mrs. Thompson has a spare room. She insisted. We're there for now, until we figure out what's next."
I nodded once.
Up close, she was beautiful in a way I'd been working on not noticing since she'd crossed the lot. Dark eyes. Dark hair pulled back. The kind of skin that didn't need anything done to it. There was a tiredness in her face I hadn't seen from across the bay—the kind that sat under the smile she'd built when I told her my name.
I made myself keep my eyes above her shoulders.
She didn't seem to want to be looked at the way I was looking at her.
I made myself stop.
"I should let you get back," she said.
"Okay."
She didn't move. Then she remembered she was the one leaving and took a step toward the bay door. Stopped. Looked back at me.
"Thank you, Cole. I don't know how to say it better than that."
"You don't have to."
She nodded and walked out of the bay, crossing the lot with her arms held close, her shoulders down.
I stood at the threshold of the bay for a beat longer than I needed to.
CHAPTER 5
Tessa
Cole Weston.
The name had landed sideways at the firehouse. By the time I reached my car, the rest of him had come up around it. It had ridden home with me from there. It had gone into Mrs. Thompson's spare room with me while Noah slept. It had sat at the breakfast table while I made him his cereal. It had walked into the bakery with me this morning, and it was still in my head now, in the slow part of Sunday, with the lunch rush behind me and my hands in dough.
Cole Weston.
Of all the people in this city. Of all the firefighters at all the stations. Of all the men who could have been on the engine that pulled up to the house. The universe had handed me him.
I tipped the dough out of the bowl onto the counter. Country loaf. I had four to make for Monday. I dusted the surface with flour, set the heel of my hand against the dough, and started to work.
Mrs. Thompson had woken up rough that morning—a head cold, she said, but the kind that pulled the color out of her face and made her sit down in the middle of folding boxes. I'd toldher to go home. She'd argued for about ninety seconds and then gone.
Benjie had walked her back to the house, then come back, then walked out again twenty minutes ago because she'd called him about something from the pharmacy. The bakery was quiet. Noah was in the corner, near the back window, with a book, the way he liked to be when I worked weekends. He had not asked me a single question all morning, which was its own piece of information.
