Page 53 of At First Flight (Coral Bell Cove #1)

Something about the scent of smoke and sugar always hits me right in the chest. How it clings to your shirt, seeps into your skin, or reminds me of long, humid summer nights, sticky popsicle fingers, and second chances around a firepit. Today, it smells like hope.

The town barbecue is already in full swing by the time we pull into the gravel lot beside the community pavilion.

Someone’s blasting Garth Brooks over the loudspeakers, the kids sprint barefoot across the grass, and the unmistakable sound of water balloons bursting sets off a ripple of shrieks and giggles.

Oliver is out of his booster seat before the SUV fully stops. Thank goodness for childproof locks. “Race you to the tug-of-war!” he yells when he’s finally set free, darting across the lawn with the kind of reckless speed only a five-year-old can get away with.

Evelyn climbs out slower, blinking behind her pink sunglasses like she’s taking stock of everything—the cotton candy machine, the bouncy castle, and the rows of picnic tables shaded by strings of lights. “Lila?” she says, holding up her arms.

Lila scoops her up without hesitation, tucking Evelyn against her hip like she was made for it. “Think they’ll have lemonade?”

“Yellow lemonade,” Evelyn insists. “Not pink.”

I shut the truck door and catch Lila’s eye over the roof.

Her mouth curls in a soft smile, the kind that knocks all the air from my lungs.

She’s wearing a pale green sundress that hits just above her knees, her waves tied back with a scarf Evelyn picked out.

She looks relaxed, sun-kissed, and more at home here than I probably ever have.

God help me, I think I’m in love with this woman.

Not the kind of love that’s shiny and new and promises the moon without ever delivering.

This is something steadier. Something that makes your knees shake for an entirely different reason.

Once you realize someone fits like that, like they were meant to exist in your kitchen, your yard, and your life, you also realize how devastating it would be to lose them.

Lila meets my gaze again as she sets Evelyn down and grabs her bag from the passenger seat. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I say, clearing my throat. “Just… happy you’re here.”

She smiles again, softer this time, and links her fingers with mine. “Come on. Let me show you where to find the world’s driest burgers.”

I chuckle and press a kiss to her knuckles. “I’ve been told you haven’t lived until you’ve had one of Dicky Smick’s hockey-puck specials.”

The truth is, I don’t care what they’re serving. I’m just glad we’re here together, all of us. For the first time in a long time, it feels like we’re not holding our breath.

The grill smokes steadily beside me as I flip patties and hand out paper plates like it’s my calling.

Every dad in town stops by with some comment about my transition from city money to country calluses.

I take the jokes in stride because honestly, it’s accurate.

Three years ago, I was living it up, jet-setting across the world.

But now?

Now I know exactly how much to bribe Oliver with to eat coleslaw.

I know Lila likes her coffee strong with two sugars, and only if she’s had at least five minutes of silence.

I know Evelyn’s favorite dress, which lullaby calms her down fastest, and how Lila's shoulders relax when she’s reading with her feet curled under her.

So yeah, I’m still learning how to be “local.” But I’m also learning how to be theirs.

Dicky grins at me over the lid of the grill. “You’ve got that look, Dean.”

“What look?” I ask the man I met just ten minutes ago.

“The one you only get when someone’s crawled under your ribs and made a home there.”

I laugh it off. But he’s not wrong.

When I glance over my shoulder, Lila is crouched near the dessert table, helping Evelyn balance a lemon bar on a paper plate.

Lila reaches out and grips the edge of the plate just before it topples over.

Oliver is nearby, covered in face paint and powdered sugar, declaring war on the water balloon brigade.

She doesn’t see me watching her, not at first.

Her hair is caught in a braid she must’ve twisted together since we arrived. The ends are curled softly where the heat from the day caught hold. Her sundress is a shade of pale green that makes her skin look sun-kissed and glowy.

And damn if that image doesn’t settle right into my chest like it belongs there.

I make my way across the field, past the cornhole boards, and into the soft shade of the pavilion. It’s cooler here, quieter too, enough that I can hear Evelyn’s bubbly chatter and Lila’s low laughter.

“Daddy!” Evelyn spots me and immediately reaches her sticky hands into the air.

She’d recently taken up the moniker after hearing her brother call me Dad a few times.

Lila watched me break down that night, both out of fear that they’re forgetting their mother and complete joy that they see me as their parent.

I scoop her up, holding her against my side, and steal a glance at Lila. “How’s the sugar patrol holding up?”

She grins. “Just bribed them with watermelon instead of cupcakes. I’d say I’m winning.”

She’s winning more than she knows. The kids are calmer around her. Lighter. Happier. Hell, I am too.

I set Evelyn down beside her again and lean in, dropping my voice low. “You’re incredible with them.”

Lila ducks her head but not before I catch the flush on her cheeks. “They’re easy to love.”

I’m about to sit down when a scream tears through the air. Sharp. Panicked. Young. The kind of sound that stills an entire crowd.

Heads whip toward the play area. A woman stumbles to her feet, a plate of deviled eggs crashing to the grass. She shouts something, a name, I think, but it’s lost in the scramble.

Lila’s already moving.

I blink, momentarily stunned at how fast she reacts. She darts toward a boy no older than Oliver, curled near the edge of the sandbox, clutching his throat. His face is blotchy and swollen. His lips are already tinged a scary shade of blue.

“EpiPen!” Lila shouts, dropping to her knees beside him. “Does anyone have an EpiPen?”

The boy’s mother fumbles through a diaper bag with shaking hands. “He has one! He has one!”

I rush forward, heart thudding. The whole park is still now, quiet except for the sharp gasps of a little boy who can’t get air. My stomach churns. Lila rips the pen from the mother’s hands the second she finds it. No hesitation. No second-guessing.

“Hold him steady,” she instructs, then plunges the needle into his thigh.

The boy jerks, but she’s already murmuring calm reassurances, her hand smoothing over his hair, her breathing steady and sure.

My own breath catches. Because this, this woman is doing what no one else in this field full of parents and picnic baskets could do.

She’s saving him.

Within seconds, his breathing starts to ease. The swelling doesn’t disappear, but it stops getting worse. The crowd collectively exhales, but Lila doesn’t move. She stays crouched beside him, hand in his, whispering soft things only he can hear. His mom is sobbing now, clutching both of them.

Paramedics arrive minutes later, summoned by someone in the crowd. Lila points out the small square of peanut brittle clutched in the boy’s hand to them. Something he had clearly snuck when his mother wasn’t looking.

They take over, and Lila steps back, chest heaving like she’s run a marathon. She turns toward me. And I see it, the tremble in her hands, the shadow in her eyes. The past bleeding into the present.

I step up beside her. “Lila…”

She shakes her head once, hard. “I’m okay. I just…” Her voice cracks. “He’s gonna be okay.”

“You were amazing.” My voice is hoarse and thick. “You saved his life.”

Her throat works as she swallows. “It was all too familiar.”

I don’t ask. I already know. She once told me how the one rite of passage changed both of their lives. It’s what drove her to science. What made her the kind of woman who doesn’t just study things, she fights them. But now I understand the weight of that fight.

I touch her elbow gently. “Come sit. Just for a second.”

She lets me guide her to a shaded bench behind the dessert table, Evelyn still lingering nearby with wide eyes and a half-eaten lemon bar.

“You did everything right,” I tell her. “Every single step. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

Lila lets out a shaky breath. “It brought it all back.”

Her voice is quiet, but her eyes blaze with something fierce. “That boy… he didn’t even know to check what he was eating. He just saw something sweet and took a bite. No one told him what peanuts could do to him.”

“And now they will,” I say, sliding my hand into hers. “Because of you.”

She exhales slowly, letting her shoulders drop slightly. “It makes me think… maybe the lab isn’t the only way. Maybe research isn’t the only way to save lives.”

I squeeze her hand. “What are you saying?”

Her gaze lifts to mine, steady now. “That maybe I could do more good in a classroom. That if kids learned young—if we educated them, made it real instead of abstract—maybe fewer would end up like that boy.”

“And like your friend,” I add gently.

She nods, eyes shining. “Yeah. Like him.”

We fall quiet for a minute, watching as the boy is loaded into the ambulance, his mom sobbing with relief. The crowd is already breaking apart, drifting back to food and music and pretend normal.

But something’s shifted in her. In me too.

Lila sits a little straighter.

“Do you think,” she begins, voice tentative, “that it would be enough? Teaching, I mean. Running a program instead of being in a lab.”

I don’t hesitate. “If it’s where your heart is, it’s more than enough. It’s everything. But you can do both. The job is part-time, remember.”

She looks at me then, eyes wide and glassy and so damn beautiful I almost forget we’re in the middle of a park.