Love, Special Delivery

Dad liked to say everything was different in Harmony Valley. If Dad were out here, he’d say Mandy wasn’t a stranger. She was a neighbor. Practically a friend. Friends found solace in each other’s smile.

“There used to be a fence here,” she said from her backyard in a voice as neutral as Switzerland.

“You lived there before?” Ben moved closer until the thick hedge that separated them nearly touched his chest. He tried to take a bead on her feelings. Was she happy to be back?

“My grandparents raised me here. Back then the Morrettis lived in your place.”

“My mom said a windstorm recently knocked down the fence and the Morrettis cleared out the debris, but didn’t rebuild.” He couldn’t see Mandy’s face in her shadowy backyard, couldn’t fathom why she wanted to see the moon. He wasn’t very patient or much good at beating around the bush. “Why do you want to look at the moon?”

More silence. He waited her out.

“I’m raising my sister,” she said in a low voice he had to strain to hear. “She’s seventeen going on thirty-seven.”

“I’m raising my goddaughter,” he said without thinking. “She’s seven going on seventy.”

Mandy chuckled. It was a warm sound that reached across the shrubs to ease the neck cramp he hadn’t realized was there.

“You can see the moon over here,” he repeated, adding quickly, “There’s a break in the hedge toward the back of the yard.” He’d discovered it when he’d checked the property to make sure it was safe for Hannah. He hadn’t realized she’d use the front door and a bicycle to go exploring.

They walked side by side to the opening.

Mandy entered his yard. The moon cast her in soft light, illuminating her gentle sanity-holding smile. She’d taken out her ponytails, and her hair hung loosely over her ears. She still wore her postal shorts and baggy shirt. She was comfortable in her own skin, disheveled as it was. Little about her should have been attractive or intriguing.

She intrigued him anyway. Opening a post office. Raising a girl. Giving him grief.

Mandy tilted her face to the heavens. “Hello, Mr. Moon.”

Talking to the moon.

Ben bit back a grin. Of course, a woman who smiled through her troubles would talk to the moon.

Erica had been a firm believer in everything having energy and heart. She’d talked about cars and fires as if they were alive and had a personality. It was probably why Hannah projected personalities on every animal she came upon.

“Mr. Moon keeps all my secrets,” Mandy whispered, bringing Ben back to the present.

He had the strongest urge to be pale and round and silent. He wanted to know the secrets Mandy told the moon, especially about her smile. He’d never been one to keep things inside. The few secrets he had, like the night he’d spent with Erica, were too personal to share with anyone.

Thinking better of his wish for Mandy’s secrets, he took a step back.

Life was cruel. Bad things happened. People let you down. And it was best to scowl and go it alone, like the big full moon Mandy was sharing her secrets with. If only the moon were scowling and not smiling, like Mandy.

“Okay,” she said with a burst of expelled air, the kind of breath that indicated she felt the awkwardness of the situation as palpably as he did. “Thanks for giving me my nightly sliver of sanity pie.” She turned. There was no smile on her face.

No smile.

He couldn’t believe it.

Ben almost reached for her, almost fell to the impulse to cup her cheek with his palm. “Come back anytime,” he said instead.

“Do you mean it?” She grinned a happy grin, one full of joy.

He grinned back. “I do.”

“Thank you.” She slipped through the hedge to her backyard. “The moon helps me deal with Olivia without breaking any eggshells.” She turned back to him, everything but her voice lost in shadow. “That’s what I call losing my temper. You know, because kids are fragile...and frustrating. And she’s taken more hits than any kid deserves.”

Like Hannah. “Wouldn’t want to be Humpty Dumpty.”

“No.”

There was another awkward pause, awkward because he felt the need to fill it and couldn’t find the right words. Mandy had her act together. He respected that. She had a way to deal with stress. He respected that. He was just worried that there were other things he liked about her that had to do with the distraction of an attractive, fascinating woman.

The last thing he needed in his life was a distraction.

“Good night,” she said softly.

Her sneakered footfalls made soft noises in the darkness.

“Good night,” he called after too long of a pause.

Ben waited until he heard Mandy’s door latch, waited until Mandy and her secrets were locked safely inside. Only then did he turn back to the house.

Without looking up at Mr. Moon.

CHAPTER FIVE (#u57945a2e-938e-5c0d-96c7-e6c0b5161a40)

“THERE IT IS,” Dad said as he and Ben drove toward a small grass fire on a solitary stretch of two-lane highway on the outskirts of town.

It was their first fire operating as the Harmony Valley Fire Department. Ben was excited. Finally, the work he’d become a firefighter for had materialized. The peppery smoke was thick, the red-gold flames low, and a twenty-foot patch of ground blackened.

“You knock it down, son.”

Ben stepped on the brakes too hard. “What about calling for backup?” They were only two men. “What about protocol?” A four-person crew.

“We can have this fire out long before the Cloverdale team gets here.”

“Since when did you become a renegade?” His father had always played by the rules.

“Things are different in a small fire department.” Dad grinned. “And I happen to be the fire chief.”

No one would have their backs if things got out of hand. It would just be Ben and his father. It’d never been just Ben and his father, not even when he was a kid.

Ben leaned forward to study the fire again. It was a small fire, about the size of his parents’ living room. The grass here was sparse, having survived several years of drought. Little fuel, little wind, little fire. Odds were in their favor.

“Okay, boss. We’re saving Cloverdale Fire some gas.” Ben would rather his father stay in the truck, but he needed a second pair of hands to run the system, monitor water pressure and occasionally help him with the hose. With adrenaline-fueled speed, he hopped out and strapped on his breathing apparatus—his mask and a tank on his back. Then he pulled a hose free and connected it to the truck, while Dad readied the pump.

The fire crackled and popped as lazily as a ringed campfire. Ben wasn’t fooled. One strong gust of wind and the flames would sprint to the hills and then the Mayacamas mountain range separating Sonoma County from Napa. The fire would feed on the sparse grass until it found something meatier, like an abandoned house or a grove of drought-thirsty trees.

Planting his feet firmly on the ground, Ben aimed the nozzle toward the fire. “Let’s do this!”