A Firefighter's Promise. Patricia Johns

on a chair to reach the inside of the upper shelves, emerged from the depths of a cupboard and eyed her over her glasses. Short, graying hair curled around her face, and her cheeks glowed with the combination of heat and exertion.

      “Why didn’t you move back earlier?” Louise pushed her glasses up on her face with one arm, keeping her rubber-gloved hands free. “This house has been empty this whole time, you know.”

      “I know.” Rachel rose to her feet. “But when Ed died, I didn’t want to leave our home. It felt like leaving him behind.”

      If she had to be brutally honest with herself, she was pretty angry with Ed, too, for having left her behind. They were supposed to grow old together. Ed’s dying wasn’t part of the deal.

      Her aunt nodded. “This is good for Christopher, though. He needs family.”

      Rachel glanced upward, toward the boy’s bedroom on the second floor. Overhead, the odd thump echoed down through the ceiling from his unpacking efforts.

      “I hope so,” she said softly.

      “You need family.” Aunt Louise shot her a pointed look.

      Rachel grinned. “I know. And here we are.”

      Louise gave a curt nod and disappeared back into the cupboard once more. Rachel stood motionless, her mind moving over the memories of childhood summers. Hot apple pie, sweet iced tea, old family stories, visits to the graveyard, where she used to read the inscriptions on her great-grandparents’ gravestones, feeling connected to the generations who came before her... Haggerston had been a warm, safe place for Rachel, and she hoped that somehow her own pleasant memories would morph into something more tangible for her son. Was it even possible to channel her happy childhood memories into his boyhood years?

      A knock from the front door echoed through the empty house, and Rachel peeled off her rubber gloves and dropped them onto the side of the bucket, then went to answer the door. She paused at the foot of the stairs, just able to make out her son’s legs as he scampered down the upstairs hallway. She smiled to herself and pulled open the front door.

      Matt Bailey stood on the porch, his navy blue uniform shirt open at the neck and the summer breeze ruffling his sun-bleached hair. He dropped his gaze, then lifted his eyes to meet hers tentatively.

      “Hi,” he said.

      “Hello.” A thump overhead drew both of their attention, and she chuckled. “Chris is unpacking up there.”

      “Sounds like he’s enjoying himself.” He glanced upward, in the direction of the thumps. “Sorry to just stop in on you like this. I saw your car, so I figured you’d be here.”

      Rachel looked past his broad shoulders to her white hatchback, rusting around the wheel wells and badly in need of a wash. “You found me. I’m just renting right now, but this is actually my grandmother’s old house, so—”

      From the kitchen, Louise called, “I told you a thousand times, Rachel, I’m not accepting a penny from you!”

      Rachel laughed and shook her head. “That’s Aunt Louise. She has ears like a cat. Be warned.”

      Matt’s eyes crinkled in a warm smile. “Sounds like you’re in good hands.” The smile faltered, and he met her gaze frankly. “I wanted to apologize about today.”

      “Oh, it’s no matter.” Rachel batted her hand through the air.

      “No, it is.” He cleared his throat. “I wasn’t expecting to meet Chris today, and I wasn’t at my best. Is he okay?”

      Rachel’s mind went to the silent drive home she and Christopher had shared—a quiet boy fiddling with a paper plane in the back of the car, his usual noisy exuberance dampened. She wasn’t about to make that Matt’s problem, though. “He’ll be all right.”

      “Okay. Good.” Matt cleared his throat, and his gaze softened. “It was nice to meet you. Both of you.”

      Inside the house, the phone rang, and Louise picked it up with a singsong “Hello?” Rachel angled her head toward the door and stepped outside. Matt followed. One side of the porch was overgrown with a lilac bush, the clustered blossoms breathing out fragrance, and the other side basked in the shade of a mature oak tree. She let her gaze wander over the yard, a little overgrown and in need of mowing, and then back to her tall guest. Matt’s uniform shirt was wrinkled up the back, and his chin glistened with stubble in the late-afternoon sunlight.

      “I should apologize, too,” she confessed. “I didn’t mean to come on so strongly back at the firehouse. I get something into my head, and I just go full steam ahead. I guess I’d hoped—” She brushed some errant wisps of hair away from her forehead. “I don’t even know what I hoped. I’m sorry about that.”

      “No, it’s okay. It sounds pretty complicated, actually.”

      “It is.” She pushed her fingers into her snug jeans pockets. “But that isn’t your problem. I’ll take care of it.”

      “Yeah, of course.” He nodded curtly and took a step back, his eyes moving over the wooden porch, paint flaking away from the sagging boards. “Did you know that I knew your grandmother? I don’t know why you and I never met.”

      “Did you? I didn’t realize that. I used to come to visit in the summers for a couple of weeks, but never for terribly long.”

      “That would explain why I don’t remember you.” He shot her a boyish grin, and for a moment she thought he might be flirting, but then he looked away. “Your grandmother was a nice lady. She used to bring us homemade cookies at the firehouse.”

      “That sounds like Grandma.” Rachel chuckled. “She fed absolutely everyone.”

      She also had a soft spot for firefighters, something that Ed had always appreciated.

      “No complaints here.” Matt crossed his muscular arms over his chest. “She made the best macaroons in town. That included my own grandmother’s macaroons.”

      “That’s some high praise, then.” Rachel smiled. “This seems like a great place for a kid to grow up.”

      “The best.” Something flickered deep in his eyes at those words, but before she could think more of it, a window scraped open on the second floor over their heads, and Christopher’s voice hollered down, “Mom!”

      Rachel trotted down the steps to look up at her son’s smiling face.

      “Are you exploring up there?” Rachel asked with a laugh.

      “Yeah, I found old hats.”

      “That’s fun.”

      “And a really big spider.”

      Rachel shuddered. “Don’t touch it.”

      “I can’t reach it,” Chris replied, which meant that he’d have caught it already if it had been lower to the floor. She could be thankful for small mercies.

      “Mr. Bailey came by to say hello,” she said, and Matt ambled up next to her, his warm arm emanating heat against her slender shoulder.

      “Hi.” Chris’s tone turned shyer.

      “I was hoping I could take you and Chris out for dinner tonight,” Matt said, his gaze moving from Rachel to Chris and back again. “If you aren’t busy, that is.”

      “Actually Aunt Louise is cooking for us,” she replied. “It would have been nice, though.”

      “How about tomorrow evening?” he asked.

      Rachel nodded with a smile. “That would work. Thanks. I’m sure Chris would like the chance to talk to you a bit more.”

      “I don’t know what to say to Chris, but I’ll do my best,” he confessed, his tone dropping low enough for her ears alone.

      Rachel shrugged. “Don’t worry