From the Start

  Really? This intoxicating tension felt normal to him? “But about the flashback, if you’re remembering . . .” If he talked it out, described the flashback itself . . . What if it was good for him? Healing in some way?

  But she couldn’t push the question to her vocal cords, each distant thought falling flat as he took another step closer to her.

  “It’s not just Maple Valley, Kate. It’s you.”

  “Colton.” His name came out a whisper, not at all the argument it should’ve been.

  And then he kissed her—a tentative, feather-soft kiss, heart-fluttering enough on its own. But then as one heady second slid into two, he released her hands and wrapped his arms around her, his kiss becoming so much more that she couldn’t stop herself from responding.

  And every voice in her head finally silenced save one. The one telling her if this was his kind of normal, she could stay wrapped up in it forever.

  She slipped her arms around Colton just as he broke away, his eyes as dazed as she felt. And then he smiled. “For the record, Rosie, that kiss wasn’t even close to an accident.” His head tilted to her again—

  But the door of the depot crashed open then, banging into the opposite wall. Footsteps accompanied the clamor, and as she and Colton shot apart, she was vaguely aware of the muffled pops of continued fireworks.

  And Dad’s voice. “The dam . . . It finally broke.”

  15

  Pain sliced through Colton’s shoulder as he heaved what had to be his hundredth sandbag onto the growing wall around the rising river. The first rays of sunrise colored the sky in curls of pink, and exhaustion rippled through him in waves.

  But he’d never felt so perfectly in place. Even with damp clothing clinging to his skin and wind-thrown sand in his hair.

  “You should go home, Greene. Get some sleep.” Seth’s friend, Bear, grunted as he hefted a sandbag. “First shift ended an hour ago.”

  “I’m good. Wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway.” Not knowing so many others were still out here defending the town against the river’s marching speed. It’d be like abandoning his team to finish a game without him. According to the emergency response manager, they had less than a couple hours left before the river overtook the road.

  “I can’t believe it’s flooding this late in the year.”

  Colton gritted his teeth as a spasm tore through his shoulder, then accepted another sandbag from Bear. “But we’re making progress, don’t you think?” He looked down the river, at the piles of bags and the assembly line of community members. The main area of risk was the three-block stretch of businesses along the riverfront. Bags were already piled high in front of buildings.

  A burly wind hurled itself against him now, carrying sand and pricks of water from lingering rain—or maybe from the river.

  Bear inhaled as he lifted a bag. “If we’re lucky, we’ll hold her in.” He shook his head. “Can’t say the same for Dixon though. Has to be devastating.”

  News of the dam’s cracking in the town forty miles north hadn’t taken more than minutes to spread to Maple Valley. And just like that, the fireworks had ended and the community erupted into action.

  And that moment with Kate back in the depot—suddenly it felt like days ago instead of only hours.

  “It’s not just Maple Valley, Kate. It’s you.”

  His words had hammered him all night long as he worked, the truth of them spreading through him like the ache from his injuries. Ache was the perfect word for it, too. Without Kate, without the sense of calm and normalcy Maple Valley gave him, he’d go back to being the same old Colton, wouldn’t he? Here . . . here he was a new man.

  Except for the flashbacks. But even those weren’t as bad, not with a hodgepodge of people who’d become like family faster than he could’ve imagined.

  The sound of an engine rumbled in, and he turned to see a truck pulling to a stop, its bed loaded with more bags.

  And Kate. She sat on a pile of bags in the back, holding on to the truck bed’s side for balance. He was the first to abandon his post at the front line and meet the truck.

  Kate jumped down as he reached her. “Special delivery.”

  “Katharine Walker, what are you still doing here? And why aren’t you wearing your coat?” Her rain-soaked shirt clung so close to her skin he could see the flex of her arms when she lifted a sandbag. Her lips were nearly blue from the cold.

  She lifted a sandbag. “Mrs. Jamison was shivering as she served coffee. She’s seventy-five, if she’s a day. Gave her my coat.”

  She would. Because that was Kate. The daughter who rushed home when her father needed her. The sister who kept an intentional pulse on each of her siblings. The community member who pitched in when the call came. The mentor who befriended a pregnant barista.

  The woman who made him wonder what he’d ever seen in any other woman.

  He reached out to accept a sandbag from her now, fingers brushing hers as he did, holding the bag in place between them. “First shift ended an hour ago. That’s what Bear said.”

  Fatigue pulled at her eyelids. “You’re still here.”

  The river’s rushing roared behind him. “I am.”

  A slivered sun reflected in her eyes in flecks of gold. They still held the sandbag between them, caught in a moment not all that different from last night.

  “Kate—”

  Bear approached then, cutting off words Colton hadn’t even fully formed in his mind yet. He glanced at the sandbag, then at Kate. She released it to Colton, who released it to Bear and stepped back.

  “You know, I think you might be the new town hero,” Kate said as he turned to grab another bag. “Everyone keeps talking about you. How you’re not even from here, but you’ve worked longer and harder than anyone tonight. Or, well, this morning, I guess.”

  He gulped in the words town hero the way he used to starting quarterback, nourishing pride settling into the hungry spaces inside him. “Guess those years of running around in Superman pajamas with a red cape paid off.”

  “Did you wear your underwear over your pants? Please tell me you wore your underwear over your pants.”

  He turned back to her. “Not sure I’m comfortable talking about my underwear with you, Miss Walker.”

  She donned a properly contrite expression, underneath a spreading blush. “You’re entirely right, Mr. Greene. So sorry for the impropriety.”

  “But yes, sometimes I did. And one time I was so sure the costume and cape were going to help me fly that I climbed onto the back of the couch and jumped and crashed into a lamp. That’s how I got the scar over my eyebrow.”

  “Really? I always assumed it was a football thing.” She lifted another bag, arms straining, and handed it to him.

  “Kate, take a break, okay? Let us unload the rest.”

  “Not happening. I’m in this for the long haul. Plus, I can’t go home until I get ahold of Megan. I’ve tried calling her four or five times already. The coffee shop’s right in the path of the river.”

  “She’s probably still sleeping.”

  “I know, but I’d feel better if I knew for sure.”

  Colton pulled the last sandbag from the truck just as another vehicle pulled up—this one an emergency response vehicle, its pulsing light glaring against dawn’s shadows. Raegan jumped out of the SUV’s passenger seat, wisps of blond hair fluttering against her cheeks underneath a newsboy hat. Just like Kate, goose bumps trailed her bare arms. Bear joined them once more as Raegan hurried over.

  “River’s over the Archway Bridge,” she said.

  Kate’s eyes widened. “Already? Then that means the other bridges—”

  “Yep, already barricaded.”

  “Emergency Management says we’ve done all we can as far as sandbagging. Now it’s about safety, getting people home and away from the river. We need to spread the word—they’re closing Archway down in an hour.”

  Which meant if they wanted to get home, they needed to leave soon.

  Be
ar yanked the walkie-talkie from a hook over his belt. “I’ll start passing on the message. But first . . .” He shrugged out of the flannel shirt he’d worn over a T-shirt and handed it to Raegan.

  For just a moment, Raegan’s grin chased away the tension of her delivered news. She pulled on the shirt and directed her next words to Kate. “I told Dad we’d head home in the next half an hour.”

  “I just need to get ahold of Megan first.”

  “Okay, see ya. Colton, make sure she does as she’s told, all right?”

  “I’ll do my best.” He turned to Kate and pinched his Henley away from his chest. “I’m not wearing another shirt under this, but—”

  “I’m fine, Colt. You start wandering around here shirtless and that town-hero talk will take on a whole new angle.”

  “I’m going to finish piling the last of these bags. Meet at your car in twenty minutes? It’s still parked up by the fire station.”

  She nodded and returned to the truck she’d arrived in. For the next fifteen minutes, he helped cover the line of people stretching downriver, spreading the news that it was time to close down the sandbagging effort. He caught a ride with Laura Clancy back to the fire station—learned Webster had been out all night working alongside everyone else. Couldn’t help the shot of pride that tidbit of info produced.

  But when Laura dropped him off, Kate wasn’t at her car.

  He waited. Five minutes. Ten. He tried texting, calling. Checked the time on his phone. Down to twenty-five minutes until the bridge closed.

  Where are you, Kate?

  Kate should’ve checked Coffee Coffee first. Why had she wasted time jogging the six blocks to Megan’s house before coming to the coffee shop?

  The sound of the river’s whooshing pulse joined the slap of her feet in the puddles leading to Coffee Coffee’s entrance. The bottoms of the sandbags around the corner door were already damp, and water was beginning to pool wherever the sidewalk dipped. And there, behind the glass windows fronting the shop, Megan’s form.

  Kate wrenched the door open and hurried in, breathless and irritated. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve called you?”

  Megan’s attention jerked from the shop vac at her feet to Kate, dark hair swinging at the movement. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for hours.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve been a little busy.” Smudges of water dampened Megan’s holey jeans and T-shirt with a band name in graffiti print. She wore only flip-flops on her feet, toes nearly blue.

  And no wonder. Water had already begun seeping from the basement to stain the coffee shop’s wood floor. Apparently Megan had been trying to keep up with it using the shop vac, but she had to know the effort was in vain. Once the river spilled over the road, together with the water leaking from the basement, it would only be a matter of time before it reached ankle-deep, or maybe even knee-deep, here.

  Kate had seen it before. It’s why all the businesses along the three-block riverfront stretch were all new or renovated within the past twelve years—since the last major flood gobbled up the area.

  “You’ve obviously made a valiant effort here, but it’s time to go home. You’re exhausted and . . . and pregnant.”

  “Thanks for the reminder.”

  “You need rest.”

  “I need to save my livelihood.” Her dark gaze shot bullets.

  The musty smell of river water overtook the coffee shop’s usual coffee aroma. “Megan—”

  “Why are you even here?” The words exploded from her, and she flung her arms up. “Why do you keep showing up? Here, at my house, the doctor’s office—”

  “You called me—”

  “You don’t know me. You don’t owe me. You’re nothing to me. Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

  The anger in Megan’s voice, the sharpness of her words—“You’re nothing to me”—blocked any response. Kate hugged her arms to herself, cold and fatigue no match for the worry charging through her. Oh, Megan . . .

  The girl’s shoulders slumped then, her body going limp as she sunk down to sit on the shop vac, as if suddenly emptied of argument. “I put everything into this place—all the money I had left, every cent.”

  Kate pulled a chair away from a table, lowered. “I know you did.”

  “I made the mistake of calling my parents when I was thinking of buying it. So of course my dad called the Realtor—got him to admit the reason I was getting such a good price on the building was because it’s on flood ground. I didn’t care. Wasn’t going to let the man who’d ignored me most of my life suddenly butt in and keep me from my future.”

  It was the most Kate had ever heard Megan say at once.

  “So of course I ignored Dad and bought the place anyway. And now look—I’m going to lose it. And right when I need it most.” She looked up, eyes hooking on Kate’s from behind pooling tears and strands of hair that hung over her face. “I’m going to have to go home and tell my parents I lost everything—and oh yeah, I’m knocked up.”

  Kate leaned forward to brush the hair out of Megan’s face. “You haven’t lost everything, Megan.”

  She sniffled, swiped her sleeved arm under her nose. “I guess not. I have flood insurance.”

  “That’s not exactly what I meant, but yay for that, all the same.” She laid one hand on Megan’s knee. “But what I meant was, you saw the way Maple Valley pulled together after the tornado, right? It’s going to be the same way after this. I bet you’ll be blown away at how this community comes around you and everyone else affected by the flood. Same way they did my dad and the depot.”

  “I’ve only lived here two years. I’m not your dad.”

  Kate allowed a lightness into her voice. “We’ve already talked about this, Meg. You supply the coffee. And that makes you a vital fixture of the community.”

  The faintest smile attempted an appearance on Megan’s face.

  “And it’s going to be the same when you have this baby. If you let them, people are going to be there for you.” Kate squeezed Megan’s knee. “I’m going to be there for you.”

  Megan’s hair flopped forward again when she lifted her head. “But—”

  “Yes, I’m going to Africa, but I’m going to be home a couple months before your due date. Chicago’s only five hours away. I can come home tons.”

  Maybe even . . .

  Move home? Was it really a possibility? What if the trip to Africa turned into an eventual job offer from the foundation? Could she really say no to that to come back to Maple Valley?

  See the need in front of you.

  What happened when there were multiple needs in different places? How did a person choose?

  How did Mom choose?

  “Kate, I, uh . . . I didn’t mean what I said before. You’re not nothing to me.”

  She vaguely recognized the sound of the bells chiming over the coffee shop’s entrance, the burst of chilly, damp air. She didn’t turn. “I know you didn’t mean it.”

  “A lot of people in this town are nice. But you’re the first one who . . .” Megan gave a limp shrug. “Well, you know. I suppose I considered myself completely alone before.”

  She weighed her next words before speaking, a thread of a prayer running through them when she did let them out. “I’m going to say something, Meg, at the risk of sounding trite, but hear me out, okay?” At Megan’s curious nod, she continued. “You were never completely alone. I don’t know if you have any kind of faith or even believe in God—”

  “I do. I guess.” She shook the hair out of her eyes. “In a ‘somebody must have created the world’ kind of way.”

  “All right, then. So if you can believe that—that there’s a God who created a world out of nothing—then it’s not such a leap to believe He’s present in the here and now. And that He can pick up the pieces of your life—even when it feels like a flood-ravaged mess—and turn it into something brand new.” She paused until Megan met her eyes. “Maybe
. . . probably . . . something better than you imagined. Not easier, perhaps. But better, and all the richer for what you’ve been through.”

  “You believe that?”

  She might be surprised at her own words, surprised they’d chosen now—in the middle of a natural disaster—to spring. But yes, she believed them. Maybe now more than ever. “Haven’t always been the best at remembering it when I’m in the middle of my own messes. But I do believe it.”

  Megan’s head tilted then, as a shadow drifted over them. “You.”

  Kate looked up. Colton. Warmth swept through her, a reaction to his presence that was becoming more familiar—more consuming—with each day that passed. “Hey, you. How’d you know I was here?”

  “I asked about a hundred people until someone said they saw you jogging this direction. They’ll be closing the bridge any minute. You have any idea how worried I’ve been?”

  Megan laughed—actually laughed. “You two are echoes of each other. Kate said those exact words like fifteen minutes ago.”

  Kate stood, still swallowed up in Colton’s shadow, awareness puddling inside her. “Sorry to worry you. But you found me. Let’s go before the bridge closes. You need a ride, Meg?”

  Megan rose. “Oh, I’m not leaving.”

  “But everything we just talked about—”

  “I heard you, and I even believe you—that the town will pull together, I’m not alone, even . . . even the last part.” She reached for the shop vac’s hose. “But I still have to try.”

  “But—”

  “In that case, we’ll help,” Colton said.

  Kate’s gaze flung to his face. “Colton?”

  “We can at least minimize the damage. We’ll pile as much of the furniture as we can onto counters. Or, wait, even better—Kate, didn’t you say Bear lives upstairs? Maybe he’d let us haul some of it up there.”

  “The Archway is going to close in minutes. Once it closes, it’s like a domino effect downriver—all the roads and bridges for thirty, forty miles south of here will be barricaded, too. The ones north are already closed. If we don’t leave now, we’re not getting home today.”