The Firefighter's Christmas Reunion. Christy Jeffries

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      A horn honked from somewhere down the street and Isaac heard the echo of the same honk on the speaker. “Where are you?”

      “On my way to the Cowgirl Up Café to meet Scooter for breakfast,” Jonesy said in a slow drawl.

      Looking over his shoulder, he spotted his uncle a few hundred feet away, riding his horse in the middle of the road, a line of cars gridlocked behind them. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Isaac disconnected the phone and counted patiently until Jonesy cantered up to him. “I thought Mayor Johnston told you not to ride Klondike on the street anymore.”

      “He did. But then the folks over at city hall threw a walleyed fit when I started riding her on the sidewalk. So unless they’re gonna put a horse trail through downtown, me and Klondike are gonna take advantage of any road my tax dollars pay for.”

      “You could drive your truck, you know.”

      “Then Klondike would miss out on those big, juicy apples Freckles gives her over at the café.” His uncle patted the horse’s spotted gray neck. “You like your treats, don’tcha, girl?”

      “Well, maybe you should at least ride her in the bicycle lane,” Isaac suggested.

      “That’s for bikes. You wanna grab some breakfast with me and Scooter?”

      Isaac studied the older man, looked at the parking lot of the market then glanced at his watch. As a kid, the highlights of his summer used to be when he’d get to spend time with Jonesy and Scooter, his uncle’s best friend, and listen to their countless stories. The two irreverent coots were staples in downtown Sugar Falls and loved to sit around talking about their days on the professional bull riding circuit, the action they saw in Vietnam and the latest prospects for the Boise State offensive line. They were both part of the volunteer fire department and mountain rescue team, but mostly they hung out gossiping about the locals and imparting unsolicited advice to anyone in their vicinity, peppering their conversations with the occasional conspiracy theory.

      Isaac patted his empty stomach. He’d been out of town for a couple of weeks and hadn’t had Freckles’ country gravy in a while. Plus, it would be a good chance to catch up on the latest news. And by news, he meant information about Hannah Gregson and her sudden reentry into his life. “I guess I could go for some chicken-fried steak. But I’ll walk. And I’m a government employee, so if Mayor Johnston or Cessy Walker see you on that horse, I’m gonna keep on walking.”

      The Cowgirl Up Café was only two blocks down Snowflake Boulevard, the main street that ran through the center of the Victorian-era downtown. Although he lived in Jonesy’s old cabin on Sugar Creek, Isaac spent most of his time at the new fire station, working out the kinks of turning a rural volunteer unit into a professional and efficiently run department. Proving to everyone that he would be the best fire chief this town had ever seen.

      His mom had always pushed him to be the best at whatever he did. If it were up to his old man—Jonesy’s brother—Isaac would’ve been handed everything on a silver platter. Hank—now Henry—Jones left Sugar Falls the day he turned eighteen and never looked back. He’d made his fortune in the stock market and vowed that no relative of his would ever have to worry about money again.

      It was probably the biggest thing that his parents fought about, when they bothered to spend any time together. His mother was a young intern when she’d met and married his father and Henry never quite got over the fact that his supposed trophy wife ended up out-earning him by their third year of marriage. Neither one had wanted children, but Henry had talked her into just one child in the hopes that it would slow his wife’s career path and turn her into a carpooling soccer mom.

      Yet having Isaac only drove Rachel Jones to do better, to put in extra hours at the office, to make even more money. He was the wedge that had finally driven his parents apart. At least, that’s how he’d always felt.

      If Henry would buy their son the latest gaming console, Rachel would send him outside to work with the gardener in order to “earn” time to play video games. When Henry had taken Isaac aboard his private yacht for two months on the Mediterranean, Rachel decided to send her biracial son to spend his summers with a cranky, older uncle in a simple cabin on a mountain in Idaho—about as far from their Upper East Side lifestyle as she could get him. She’d thought it’d be the perfect way to not only get back at Henry, but also make Isaac appreciate the finer things that money could buy, which would make him want to become an even greater success than his parents.

      His mom’s goal of pushing Isaac to always rise above had worked and made him competitive at life. Just not at the career that she’d envisioned and thoroughly mapped out for him.

      Because they were short-staffed until the latest batch of recruits graduated from the fire academy in Boise, Isaac had spent the past two days working double overnight shifts to cover for one of his deputy firefighters. He hadn’t seen his uncle since the pancake breakfast on Saturday. While Isaac had been relieved to avoid Jonesy’s nosy questions about the return of his ex-girlfriend, he also hadn’t been able to gather any useful information.

      When they walked through the saloon-style front doors of the restaurant, Isaac had to blink a few times to accustom himself to the bright purple and turquoise-blue decor. He’d been coming to the café since the summer after sixth grade, and the eclectic decorating style was no clearer to him now than it had been back then—he could never figure out if it looked more like a rustic bunkhouse on a ranch or a sequin-covered sorority house.

      “Darlin’!” yelled Freckles, the owner and interior decorator. At least, he assumed she was the one responsible for the look of the place—judging from her brightly dyed orange hair, red cowboy boots, skintight leopard-print leggings and low-cut lime-green T-shirt that boasted We’ll Butter Your Biscuit. “When’d you get back from your trainin’?”

      “Late Friday night.”

      “Well then, I don’t blame you for not stopping in and seeing me yet.” Freckles carried a pot of coffee to the booth where Scooter was already sitting. “Not even the start of ski season, and this place was already a madhouse last weekend. Your old uncle here almost got himself eighty-sixed for coming in on Saturday and announcing to all my paying customers that my pancakes came from a box mix.”

      “Who are you callin’ old?” Jonesy mumbled, flipping over a hot-pink coffee mug. Isaac kicked his uncle under the table. Nobody knew Freckles’ exact age, and although it would probably be safe to estimate that the woman was nearing her eighth decade, it definitely wouldn’t be prudent to mention it out loud.

      “I’m putting you and Scooter on decaf.” Freckles squinted, her long false eyelashes sticking together as she frowned at Jonesy. “I’m not dealing with any extra sass outta you two this mornin’.”

      Isaac chuckled, but his humorous mood was quickly cut short when the front door opened and Sammy appeared, wearing stiff jeans with creases and a brand new pair of sneakers. Hannah was right behind him, dressed in a long, bohemian-style skirt and a high-necked tank top, the arms of her denim jacket cinched around her waist.

      For the second time today, he pinched the bridge of his nose. Isaac believed in a life lived with plenty of forgiveness and no regrets. But that had been before Hannah Gregson came crashing back into his universe with her cute kid. It was much easier to forgive a past grievance when he wasn’t running into the person who’d done him wrong everywhere he went in this small town.

      The top of her long, blond hair was loosely clipped, allowing the bottom locks to stream down СКАЧАТЬ