Chapter Twenty-Two
Cade
I walked into the fire station and leaned my elbows on the reception desk. Maisie was on the phone, her eyes flicking to me as if puzzled at my presence. It was midway through my second week on duty, and I’d determined I was going to kill her with kindness. It just goes to show how prickly she was that me, a man who’d worn my bitterness toward women like a badge for years, was trying to cajole her into being nicer.
But damn. She was like a cactus, and Carol had been more like a mother hen to all of us. It was difficult to believe Maisie was actually related to her. They shared the same wide brown eyes, and though my memories of Carol when she was younger were through the hazy lens of a little boy, I recalled her being pretty. Maisie could be if she stopped glarin
