Chapter 27: The Fire Pit
The hours slid past. The casserole dishes emptied. The cake on the kitchen counter got reduced to a few stray crumbs and a smear of frosting. People started checking their watches, gathering coats, pressing my hands and murmuring congratulations one last time. The general store owner and his wife were the first to go, followed by the church woman who had promised to bring her famous squash casserole to the wedding. The salvage yard mechanic went out shaking Allan's hand and telling him he'd better treat me right, and there was a chorus of goodbyes and well-wishes as the older crowd filtered out into the cool night.
By ten, the crowd had thinned to a dozen or so. The deputies had shed their flannels and rolled up their sleeves, and someone had produced a deck of cards that was getting a lively game of something going on the kitchen table. I found myself standing by the sideboard with Dana, nursing a glass of punch I had refilled three times without actually drinking much of it.
"Ellis says you replaced the entire fuel line yourself," Dana was saying, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. "From scratch. Without a manual."
"Allan's a bad influence. He keeps telling me I can do things I've never tried before."
"And you keep doing them." She shook her head, a grin tugging at her mouth. "The man's a menace. He's going to have you rebuilding his whole department by the time the wedding rolls around."
"Don't give him ideas."
A voice cut through the murmur of the room, hearty and carrying. "Alright, folks, I got the fire pit set up out back. Fresh logs, dry as a bone, just waiting for a match."
I looked up to see one of the deputies, a stocky red-haired man whose name I finally placed as Ellis, holding a box of long matches in one hand like a trophy. A ripple of enthusiasm went through the remaining guests. Someone whooped. Chairs scraped as people pushed back from the card game.
I felt a small, warm pull in my chest. The fire pit. The same stone ring in the yard where Allan and I had sat that first night, two months ago, when he had put his arm around me and I had fallen asleep against him with the fire dying to embers. The night before everything had changed, before I had told him the truth about witness protection, before I had met Margaret, before I had let myself believe that this life could be mine.
The group was already moving. The deputies grabbed the coolers from the kitchen, two of them hefting them by the handles, and there was a general migration toward the back door. Someone flipped on the porch light, flooding the yard in a warm yellow glow, and the screen door banged open as the first few spilled out into the night.
Allan appeared at my elbow, his hand finding mine. His palm was warm and dry, and he squeezed my fingers gently.
"Come on," he said. "You can't miss this."
"I wasn't planning to." I looked up at him, at the way the porch light caught the angles of his face, and I felt that familiar ache of gratitude rise in my chest. "I have history with that fire pit."
He grinned, and I could see he remembered too. "I know you do."
We followed the crowd out the back door together, his hand in mine, the screen door banging shut behind us. The night air was crisp and cool, carrying the first sharp edge of autumn, and the stars were out in force, scattered across the dark like someone had spilled a jar of glitter. The yard stretched out before us, the grass damp with dew, and there at the edge of the lawn sat the fire pit, a ring of dark stone with a fresh pyramid of logs stacked inside.
Ellis was already crouched beside it, striking a match. The flame flared, small and bright in the darkness, and he touched it to the kindling at the base of the pile. For a moment nothing seemed to happen, and then a thin wisp of smoke curled up, followed by a crackle and a sudden bloom of orange as the fire caught. It spread quickly, licking up the logs, throwing dancing shadows across the grass.
The deputies arranged themselves around the pit, pulling the Adirondack chairs into a loose circle and popping the coolers open with a hiss of escaping cold. Bottles were passed around, cans cracked open, the comfortable sounds of a group of friends settling in for the night. Dana dropped into a chair beside Ellis and propped her feet on the stone rim, and someone tossed another log onto the fire, sending a shower of sparks spiraling into the dark.
Allan guided me to a spot near the fire, close enough to feel the warmth on my face, and settled me onto a weathered Adirondack chair before pulling up a stump stool beside me. He kept my hand in his, our fingers laced together on the armrest, and I could feel the heat of the fire on my cheeks, the cool of the night at my back.
I looked around the circle at the faces illuminated by the firelight. Ellis was telling a story about a bull named Barnaby that I had heard before, and Dana was laughing so hard she nearly choked on her beer. The other deputies traded jokes and teased each other, their off-duty rumble a comfortable backdrop to the crackle of the flames. Somewhere behind us, the farmhouse glowed warm and golden, the porch light a beacon in the dark.
I looked down at my left hand, at the ring on my finger, the diamond catching the firelight and throwing tiny sparks of its own. Two months ago I had sat in this same spot, a stranger in my own skin, leaning into a man I had known for less than a week, terrified that any moment the life I was building would come crashing down around me.
Now the man beside me was my fiancé. The woman who had welcomed me like a daughter was asleep in the guest room upstairs. The people around this fire were my friends, my community, the fabric of a life I had never imagined for myself.
I squeezed Allan's hand, and he turned to look at me, the firelight warming his eyes.
"What?" he asked, his voice low enough that only I could hear.
"Nothing," I said. "Just happy."
He smiled, that slow, warm smile I had come to know so well, and he lifted my hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to my knuckles, right above the ring.
"Me too," he said. "Me too."