sheltered for him

Chapter Two: The man behind the fire

I told myself I wasn’t going back.

The lie fell apart before I even left my house. I made it while I was folding the library application in thirds, smoothing the crease with my thumb like that would make Mrs. Delgado call faster. I made it while I told myself I was just walking through the square because it was cooler there. I made it while I took the long route that just happened to pass Chris’s forge.

His door was open. It was always open when the heat sat heavy like this, like the air needed somewhere to escape. The smell hit me before I crossed the threshold—iron, coal, and something sharp underneath it, like burnt oil.

He was at the anvil. Shirt off. His back to me. The hammer came down and the sound cracked through the quiet morning. Clang. Sparks flew. His shoulders rolled under the motion, steady, practiced, like he’d been doing it for years and still hadn’t forgiven the metal for what it made him do.

I stopped at the edge of the doorway. Not in. Just close enough to see.

He didn’t turn. “You’re back.”

His voice was rough, like he didn’t use it unless he had to.

“I had a question,” I said.

The hammer stopped. He set it down slow, like he didn’t want to startle me. When he turned, sweat had cut lines through the soot on his face. His eyes found mine and held them. He didn’t ask what the question was. He just waited.

“Five years ago,” I said. “You showed up here. Opened this place. Before that—where were you?”

His jaw tightened. “Why does it matter?”

“Because you knew my name before I told you. Because you look at me like you’re expecting something bad to happen. Because you told me you came here to disappear, and people don’t say that unless they’re running from something.”

He didn’t answer right away. He looked past me, out at the street, like he was checking for something I couldn’t see. Then he wiped his hands on a rag and stepped around the anvil.

“Five years,” he said. “Five years since I walked away from something I shouldn’t have touched.”

“What did you touch?”

His eyes snapped back to mine. “You don’t want to know.”

“I asked.”

“You don’t get to ask that.” His voice dropped, low and flat. “You don’t get to poke at it and think it won’t bite.”

The forge hissed behind him. Metal cooled in water with a sound like a sigh.

I didn’t move. “Then tell me why you noticed me.”

He stopped. For a second, the only sound was the fire.

“Because you’re looking,” he said finally. “And people who look get seen. And people who get seen get pulled into things they can’t walk away from.”

“What kind of things?”

He didn’t answer. He picked up the hammer again, like that was the end of it.

I should’ve left. I knew I should’ve. But I stayed.

“Chris,” I said, and his name felt too big in my mouth. “If you came here to disappear, why didn’t you? Why didn’t you go somewhere no one knows your face?”

He didn’t look at me. “Because disappearing doesn’t work if you’re still breathing.”

The hammer came down again. Clang. The conversation was over.

I left his shop and kept walking. My original plan had been to go straight to the library, drop off the application, and go home. But my feet took me the long way. Past the square, past the diner, past the old courthouse that hadn’t been used in years. I walked until my shoes were dusty and my shirt stuck to my back.

When I finally reached the library, Mrs. Delgado was at the front desk. She took my application, smiled, said they’d call if they needed someone for the afternoon shift. I nodded, thanked her, and on the way out I cut through the square again.

The bell over Chris’s shop door clicked when I pushed it open. He was at the forge again. Shirt off. His back was to me, and the muscles in his shoulders shifted every time the hammer came down. Clang. Clang. Sparks jumped across the dirt floor and died before they reached my shoes.

He didn’t turn. “Door’s open,” he said. “You don’t have to stand in it.”

My face went hot. “I’m not— I came to ask if you’d seen a book.”

It was a weak lie and he knew it. He set the hammer down, wiped his hands, and turned. Sweat cut lines through the soot on his face. His eyes found mine, and for a second he didn’t say anything. Just looked. Like he was deciding if I was worth the trouble.

“You’re here again,” he said finally.

“I needed to ask you something.”

He waited.

I stepped closer, but not too close. Not close enough to feel the heat from the forge on my skin. “You said you came here to disappear. From what?”

He didn’t answer right away. He looked past me, out the open door, like he was checking the street. Like he expected someone to be there.

“Five years,” he said finally. “Five years since I walked away from something I should’ve never touched. Five years of keeping my head down, my mouth shut, my hands busy.”

“What did you do?”

His eyes snapped back to mine. “Nothing you want to know about.”

“That’s not—”

“It is.” He cut me off. “You’re waiting on that library job, right? You read books. You think people get second chances. They don’t. Not the kind you’re thinking of.”

“I didn’t say—”

“You didn’t have to.” He stepped closer this time, and I didn’t move back. “You’ve got that look. Like you think if you ask enough questions, you’ll find the part of me that’s safe. There isn’t one.”

The forge hissed. Somewhere behind me, metal cooled in water with a sound like a sigh.

“Then why did you tell me your name?” I asked. “The other day, when I asked how you knew mine, you said it. Chris. You didn’t have to.”

He didn’t answer. He just looked at me, and for a second I saw it—the tiredness under the soot, the weight he carried in his shoulders, the thing he was trying to bury under fire and hammer strikes.

“I came here to disappear,” he said again, quieter this time. “I didn’t expect anyone to see me.”

My heart was beating too fast. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“That’s not the problem.” He picked up the hammer again. “The problem is I might hurt you.”

He turned back to the anvil. The hammer came down. Clang. The conversation was over.

But I didn’t leave. I stood there until the piece of metal cooled and he set it aside and reached for another. I stood there until he finally glanced at me again, exasperated.

“Go home, Summer.”

“I don’t want to.”

He stopped. The hammer hovered over the anvil. “You don’t get to want things like that.”

“Why not?”

“Because wanting gets people killed.”

He said it flat. No drama. Just fact. And for the first time since I’d started coming here, I believed him.

I went home. But that night I lay in bed and thought about dark brown eyes and the way he’d said disappear like he was trying to convince himself. I thought about the way he’d looked at me—not like I was trouble, but like I was something breakable he didn’t trust himself to touch.

I told myself I wouldn’t go back.

I lied again.

The next morning I didn’t have a reason to leave the house. The application was in. Mrs. Delgado would call if she needed me. But I left anyway. I told myself I was going for a walk. I told myself I wasn’t heading for the square.

I was.

His shop door was open. He was already working. The hammer fell in a rhythm that matched my heartbeat. I stood in the doorway until he noticed me.

“You can’t keep doing this,” he said without turning.

“Doing what?”

“Coming here.” He set the hammer down and faced me. “You think this is about curiosity. It’s not. It’s about survival. And you don’t survive by getting close to me.”

“Why not?”

“Because the people I left behind don’t forget.” He said it like he was tired of saying it. “And they don’t care who gets caught in the middle.”

My stomach dropped. “What people?”

He didn’t answer. He looked past me, out at the street, and for the first time I saw it—fear. Not of me. Not of the town. Of something else.

“Go home, Summer,” he said. “And don’t come back.”

I didn’t go home.

I stood there until he turned away, until the hammer came down again, until the fire swallowed his face in orange light. And I knew, with a certainty that made my hands shake, that whatever he was running from wasn’t done running after him.

And now, somehow, it was running after me too.