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her?”
    â€œI don’t know anything about Dana other than that she and Carol are the go-to real estate people around here. She doesn’t seem to get involved with town stuff . . . keeps to herself, mostly.”
    â€œGriffin used to date her,” Brady said. “I could ask him if you want.”
    Before coming to Nugget, Brady had had a brush with a stalker. Aidan knew that made him hypercareful.
    â€œNah, she seems fine to me.” So she’d dated Griffin, Nugget’s resident billionaire. Aidan found that interesting. “And like I said, I’ll mostly be living at the firehouse. We’ll rarely see each other.”
    â€œAnd when you need alone time, you can always come to us,” Sloane said. “Oh, and by the way, Sue left a message for you. Something about how you guys keep missing each other and she thought she’d have better luck finding you at our house.” She lifted her brows in question. The silent message: What’s so important?
    â€œWe touched base,” he said, hoping to leave it at that.
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œShe’s getting married next weekend.” Aidan watched his sister’s mouth drop open.
    * * *
    The house seemed darker than usual. “Mom, you home?”
    â€œIn here.”
    Dana followed the faint voice into the den. “Why do you have all the lights out?”
    Her mother just shrugged and muted the sound on the television. The air smelled stale. Dana opened a few windows.
    â€œThe air conditioner is on.” Betty got out of her wing chair, went to the thermostat, and switched off the cooler. Only fifty-eight years old, she’d gone completely gray, her once lithe frame stooped over like an old woman’s.
    â€œDad still at the factory?” It was six; he should’ve been home by now.
    â€œFourth of July.”
    Dana had forgotten the holiday was just a week away. Calloway Confections was famous for its seasonal red, white, and blue chocolate stars. Cadbury might have the lock on chocolate Easter eggs, Hershey on Christmas Kisses, but only Calloway did the Independence Day stars. This time of year, her father worked overtime to make sure the stores were stocked.
    Dana used to love going to the factory with her father, where she would spend hours in the observation room with her face pressed against the glass, watching hundreds of chocolate candies, toffees, and caramels roll from conveyor belts into the old-timey tins that had become Calloway’s signature. Her great-grandfather had founded the company, and since her father had taken over the reins, Mars, Hershey, and Nestlé all had come calling. Next to them, Calloway was small potatoes with limited distribution—just the West and Southwest. But the name had become synonymous with quality, and Goliaths like Hershey wanted to add it to their list of luxury candy brands.
    Dana had pleaded with her parents to sell, take the money and move away. Away from the river and the memories and this house, once the happiest of places, now a mausoleum.
    â€œAren’t you going to ask about my meeting . . . where I’ll live?”
    Her mother had returned to the chair and unmuted the sound on the TV. “Of course, dear.”
    Dana grabbed the remote and turned the television off. “The contractors say it’ll take a year to rebuild. But they also have some wonderful ideas of how I can add a second story and reconfigure the main floor to have a bigger kitchen and a great room. It’ll really increase the resale value.”
    â€œThat’s certainly something positive.” Betty gazed out the window into the distance.
    â€œIn the meantime, I’m sharing a house with a local firefighter,” Dana said, but her mother was no longer listening. She’d slipped into Never-never Land.
    Dana presumed that wherever that was, Paul was there too. Her father at least pretended to be present. She supposed he had to emerge from the grief