Page 75 of Falling for My Grumpy Fireman

Discharge Papers

NELLIE

Debbie Sue Monroe does not throw parties. She stages campaigns.

There are three folding tables in her backyard dressed in checkered cloth, a brisket that's been on the smoker since before dawn, and enough lanterns strung through the pecan trees to land a plane. "Half of Willowbend is standing in this yard on a Thursday night holding sweet tea and casserole plates."

All of it aimed at me.

"You didn't have to do this," I tell her for the fourth time.

"I know." She hands me a deviled egg I didn't ask for. "Eat that. You're pale."

"I'm not pale."

"You're pale and you're pregnant and you're leaving Saturday, and I'm allowed exactly one of those three sentences out loud, so eat the egg."

I eat the egg.

Owen has called me six times since Wednesday. Six calls, two texts. The first text said Can we talk before Saturday. The second said Please.

I didn't answer either one. Every time his name lit up my phone, I put my hand flat on my stomach like I was holding a door shut, and I let it ring out.

Debbie knows he called. She hasn't said one word about it, which for Debbie Sue Monroe is a medical event. She keeps looking at me over the potato salad like a woman carrying something heavy up a long flight of stairs.

I know what she's carrying. I handed it to her.

"You're the nurse!" A girl with a dark braid comes flying across the grass and stops two feet short of me, vibrating. "Billie showed everybody his arm at school. You fixed it with a menu."

"And a belt," I say. "Don't forget the belt."

That does it. She hits me at full speed, arms around my waist, and I've never laid eyes on this child in my life.

"Bree." A sun-brown woman comes up behind her, smiling, a good-looking cowboy trailing with two plates. "Honey, we hug people we've met."

"I've heard of her. Mama says you're leaving and I said that's dumb."

"We talked about the word dumb."

"I said it's unfortunate."

"You did not." The woman offers her hand over Bree's head. "Sadie Monroe. Bree's mine. She hugs first and introduces herself never."

Behind her, Tater's got the smoker lid up and waves her man over. "Rey! Quit standing there looking pretty and check this bark."

I lean toward Debbie. "I thought Sadie was Dayton's sister. How's she a Monroe?"

"Married Tater's cousin, back when. Kept the name." Debbie shrugs like it's nothing, because here it is nothing. "Family's family in Willowbend. We don't do paperwork on it."

Family's family. Every hug tonight has felt like that. Like a small amputation. June from the bakery cried into my shoulder and left flour on my dress. Amos Kessler's niece drove him over and he saluted me from a lawn chair, called me "the pretty one with the mean streak," and I had to walk behind the smoker for a minute.

Six weeks ago I hadn't unpacked my last box. Tonight, a whole town showed up to grieve me, casserole by casserole, hug by hug, burying me alive in love.

Thirteen weeks. Never renew. Leave first.

My rules have never been this expensive.

Rue Hawthorne finds me by the fence around dusk. She hugs like she does everything else, precise and warm at the same time, and when she pulls back, she holds my shoulders and looks at me too long.