Was he thinking of her? She had no idea but she hoped so. Maybe she should call him, just to check in. She retrieved her phone from her back pocket. She pulled up his contact info and then her thumb hovered over the call icon.

If he’d have wanted to talk to her, he could have called after receiving her thank you card and yet he hadn’t. His silence was his answer. Her heart pinched. He didn’t want anything to do with her.

Up ahead her mother stepped out of The Lighthouse Café and she wasn’t alone. She was with Chief Campbell. But that wasn’t what caught Hannah’s attention; it was the way her mother was smiling at the chief. It was the kind of smile that lit up her mother’s entire face. She hadn’t seen her smile like that since—since her father was alive. This wasn’t some casual flirtation. She was in love with Chief Campbell.

Hannah came to a stop on the sidewalk. She knew she should turn and walk away, but she couldn’t move. Her mother and Chief Campbell stood outside the café. They were talking and laughing. They seemed to be in their own little world. They…they were in love.

The fact swept the air from her lungs. She knew it shouldn’t surprise her that things were serious. The signs had been there all along. Hannah had just been too caught up in her own life to see that her mother’s life was moving on.

Hannah thought she’d be angry over her mother finding happiness with someone else, but surprisingly, she wasn’t. There was a part of her that was happy for her, but another part that still longed for the way things used to be. Her grandmother used to say that change was never easy. She was so right.

When Chief Campbell set off in the opposite direction, her mother turned toward Hannah. Her mother’s eyes widened with surprise. At last Hannah’s feet cooperated and she resumed walking.

Her mother approached her. “Good morning.”

“Hey, Mom.”

“I guess you saw that,” her mother said. “We bumped into each other this morning. Walt was just telling me a funny story from when we were in school.”

Was her mother blushing? “You went to school together?”

Her mother nodded. “All three of us. Your father, Walt, and myself. Those were some great times. And Friday night football games were the best.”

This was new information to her. She knew her father and the chief were old friends, but she didn’t know that they were that old of friends. She’d thought they’d become close as firefighters. And then she realized that was what bothered her about her mother and Walt—he was a firefighter just like her father.

“How can you do it?” The words slipped past Hannah’s lips before her mind registered what she was saying.

“Do what?”

Since she’d already opened up the subject, she might as well keep going. “How can you get involved with another firefighter?”