Part of Your World(73)

“I somersaulted the baby to keep the cord from tightening.”

“Will you show me? How you did it?” he asked.

“You want me to show you?”

“Yeah. I don’t like that I could have messed that up. If it happens again, I want to know how to do it.”

I nodded. “Okay. Sure. Oh, which reminds me, I have a stitch kit I want to give you.”

He lit up. “Really? A kit?”

“Yeah. No more fishhooks and gin.”

Daniel laughed and picked up my hand and kissed it.

Liz made her way over with a Coke for Doug. “Another wine?” she asked me.

“No, I’m good. Thank you.” I smiled.

Daniel nodded at the empty seat next to Doug. “Sit with us.”

“Can’t, I’m on shift,” she said. “Where’s Brian?” she asked, looking around.

“On a date,” Doug said. “Rochester.”

Liz’s smile instantly fell. “Oh.”

Daniel looked at his watch. “He should have been back already. Must be going well.”

“Right,” Liz said, looking away from us. “Well, let me know if you guys need anything else.” Her voice had gone flat.

I watched her walk back to the bar. The guys didn’t seem to notice the shift.

“Did Liz and Brian ever date?” I asked.

Doug scoffed. “Nah. He’s not her type. She likes assholes,” he said, talking into his soda.

I watched her wiping down the bar, her smile gone.

“Nobody likes assholes,” I said quietly. “Sometimes that’s just what you think you deserve.”

After dinner, I showed Doug how to somersault a delivery using a rolled-up sweater baby with a phone charger wrapped around it. Then I did a breast exam in the bathroom and prescribed Hannah antibiotics. “Prescribed” being me telling Hal, the pharmacist, who was eating a slice of cake at the next table, what she needed and him walking across the street to open the pharmacy to give it to her.

When I finished, I went looking for Daniel and spotted him leaning on the bar talking to Liz. I stopped and watched him for a moment from across the room.

This was the place I met him. Really met him. I was sitting on that stool. He was standing in the same spot. Only everything was different now.

This place didn’t look tired and old to me anymore. I didn’t even notice the worn seats and the mismatched chairs. This bar was the heart of this community, I realized. It was where they celebrated and gathered. And it was where I learned his name. Touched him for the first time. Even the way the place smelled made me feel nostalgic now.

And Daniel wasn’t just some random guy in a bar anymore.

He had become the brightest light in my life, what I looked forward to every day. The man who spent two hours down by a river trying to find me the perfect rock.

He saw me. And I believed him when he said he wouldn’t let me drown.

My heart tugged.

And tomorrow morning, I would drive out of this town and never come back. I wasn’t going to see him again. Any of them.

Daniel turned and looked for me, and when his gaze met mine, he lit up. One of his adorable, dimpled grins, his hazel eyes creasing at the corners.

My heart cracked right down the middle.

He pushed off the bar, closed the distance between us, and slipped his arms around my waist. I was so proud to be the woman here with him tonight. To be his date, the one he chose. It was an honor. Not because he was the mayor or the most handsome guy in the room but because he was the best person in the room.

“Ready to go home?” he asked.

I had to muscle down the lump in my throat.

No. I wasn’t ready to go home. But I’d have to.



We said good-bye to everyone and started the walk back.

Before we left, Daniel had walked me around the VFW, showing me the yellowing articles framed on the walls with stories of his family’s contributions to the town. There was the Spanish flu save and the Prohibition story he’d already told me about. Then there was a newspaper clipping, printed by the Wakan Gazette, about Daniel’s great-grandfather John, who started a human chain to lead children out of the schoolhouse to safety during the deadly 1940 Armistice Day Blizzard. His wife, Helen Grant, used the Grant House’s large wood-fired oven and baked off a hundred loaves of bread and sent it with her husband via sleigh along with medical supplies and firewood to every house in town. Neither of them slept for three days. Survivors recounted tears of joy as John arrived with the care packages. Wakan didn’t lose one person.

There was an article about Daniel’s grandfather William, who came to the rescue in 1975 when a fast-moving wildfire threatened to burn down the town. He coordinated a response team and worked through the night to create a firebreak that saved the town before the blaze reached Wakan. Linda, Daniel’s grandmother, took charge of the evacuation efforts and ensured everyone made it to safety. The Grants were the last people to leave.

After the F2 tornado of 1991, William and Linda Grant set up a generator and a soup kitchen in the VFW to make sure everyone was fed during the cleanup. Then they advocated and won when the county wanted to divert the highway in a move that would have decimated the summer tourism. They kept the town clean and proud and safe. They were Wakan’s first and last line of defense, in all things.