When he’d first joined the crew, it had taken him almost two years before he was able to go through the drills and not see his brother’s face in the smoke. To not wonder what Reggie had been thinking when the dark cloud of smoke or the wall of flames had surrounded him, consumed him. Killed him.
Still, sometimes after he went through the drills, nightmares of the same thoughts surfaced, keeping him up at night.
Now, however, his training usually kicked in and took over, allowing him to see clearly, to feel his way out of situations where his eyes, his ears, and his surroundings were against him.
Maybe that skill was what had allowed him to see Raven clearly? To see past all the hate that had been spread in the town over the years.
Whatever the reason, he was thankful she was there with him now.
For the next two days, life was a haze. He’d always looked forward to training days, but this time they seemed to drag on and, more importantly, they were kicking his butt.
Each night Raven was there to pick up the pieces and fill his evenings with normalcy. She brought burgers home from the diner the next night. The night after it was lasagna from the dining hall at the resort.
He couldn’t admit it to her, at least not yet, but he wanted her to make it official and move in with him. He understood she wanted to keep her room at the resort, if for no other reason than to have a place to stay when she worked late so she wouldn’t have to make the drive to his place.
He knew that when the snow started falling, the fifteen-minute drive could easily turn into double that time. It was smart for her to keep some of her things there.
Hell, after the third day of training, he even wished he had a cot in his office at the station. There were beds upstairs in the fire house for crew members who worked night shifts. He remembered sleeping up there himself when he was a rookie.
Now that training was over, he was looking forward to the weekend and having some real peace and quiet. He’d initially planned for them to go on another hike, but since his ankle was still giving him problems, he decided on a long drive to the beach instead. It had been a few months since he’d taken Blue to play in the surf.
He hadn’t been there with Raven yet and was looking forward to getting out of town with her, even if it was only for a day.
Now he just needed to make it through the next two workdays and the chore he dreaded the most—telling everyone their drill rankings, which would in turn dictate each of the crew’s available shifts.
He knew that getting the best shift schedule was motivation enough for some to excel in the training. Thankfully, since he was fire marshal, his hours were locked in on standard workday hours with the occasional on-call schedule when needed.
Since there was still a lot of construction going on up at the resort, Raven’s hours wavered. Some days she was there before sunup and there past midnight, while others she had normal nine-to-five hours.
After her aunt and uncle’s last visit, she’d agreed to call or text him when she was going to be late.
The more he thought about what she meant to him, the more he realized that he didn’t want it to end. The hard part was convincing Raven that he was worth taking a chance on.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Fire has no brother ~ Nigerian proverb
If Raven had to admit anything about her and Cade’s relationship, it would be that it felt good to have someone to come home to each night. Something and someone to look forward to seeing. To spending time with.
How long had it been that she’d had that in her life? Too long. Even when she’d lived with her grandmother, she’d come home to an empty house most evenings after school. Her grandmother had been very involved in her church and had been out most nights.
Walking into Cade’s home each evening filled her with thoughts of happy-ever-after. She could own up to the fact that, at one point not too long ago, those same thoughts would have scared her.
But that was before Cade had confessed his love for her and she had done so in return.
Somehow, putting her emotions on the line had opened her up to the possibility of more. She’d enjoyed taking care of him during his training. It was obvious how much the task took out of him.
The last couple months when he’d trained, she had slept in her room at the resort, even though she’d started staying at his place each night.
It was strange—she could only gauge time passing based on how many times he’d gone through the drills.
The first time she hadn’t been at his place because she’d had to work extra hours. The second time, she’d needed to change rooms.
Now that most of the top rooms in the west building were done, she was debating changing rooms again or just asking Cade if she could move in full time with him. She doubted that he’d mind, since on the nights she hinted at staying at the resort he would talk her into driving to his place instead.
Now that training was over, he’d suggested they take a drive to the beach that weekend instead of the hike they had planned. She knew his ankle was still giving him problems and had tried to convince him to go in and see a doctor about it. Each time she brought it up, he shrugged the suggestion off and reminded her that he’d been pre-med and knew what a sprained ankle looked like.
Parts of her was thankful that he had the training he did. He was the first person she’d called when one of the kitchen staff had sliced off the tip of her finger. Cade had already been on his way up there and had made it there faster than the ambulance could have gotten there. He’d been so much help because the girl, Rebecca, a teenager whom Fiona had hired in the kitchens in the evenings, had gone into shock.
After seeing two dead bodies in the past couple months, she’d been able to keep her cool during that ordeal.
She couldn’t believe that in less than two weeks the resort would host its first event, even if it was unofficial. Hosting Cade’s mother and uncle’s wedding was going to be the perfect start, not only for her but for everyone who worked at the resort.
Raven understood that Fiona had spent a lot of her time after work planning and organizing to make her second wedding perfect.
She’d even sat in on a few of Fiona’s meetings to make sure that her staff were in line. Okay, so she was curious herself about the event and what Fiona was planning for her big day.
The official ceremony would be held in the courtyard with the mountains as a natural backdrop. By then, the fall colors would have flooded the trees, turning the green hills into an explosion of color. Those shades would also be brought into the dining hall with flowers and decorations, transforming it into a glorious new world. She couldn’t wait to see how it all looked.
She’d had David and his team start work on the new ballroom she’d devised. In the base of the west building there had been a number of large storage rooms on the main floor. She’d gotten the idea to turn them into one large ballroom after having a discussion with Darby about hosting prom at the resort. They had decided that the dining hall would be cool, but what they really needed was a ballroom so that guests could still enjoy dinner without having to deal with a bunch of teenagers.
The ballroom would be great for indoor weddings or parties, so she’d had David add the demolition of the storage areas to his first phase.
Less than an hour before she planned on clocking out and heading home—and doing a little mental dance at the thought that home equaled Cade and Blue—Cemal knocked on her office door.