Read When Shadows Fall for Free Online

nineteen-fifties. Excitement ran through her. Maybe Molly had left her the story in these journals.
    "Let me help you," the man said, reaching over to pick up a photograph that had flown down the steps. As he straightened, he said, "Wait a second, this is my grandmother. What is this—some kind of play?"
    She got up and moved next to him to see the picture. The photograph in his hand was of three women standing on a stage. "Which one is your grandmother?"
    He pointed to the blonde. "That's her. Eleanor Callaway."
    "You're related to Eleanor Callaway?" she asked in surprise.
    "I'm her grandson, Colton. Why? Do you know her?"
    "I just met her. I'm Olivia Bennett. One of your grandmother's friends, Molly Harper, asked me to come and write down the stories of the women here at the center. I'm a biographer." It was the first time she hadn't called herself a research assistant, and it felt right.
    "My sister mentioned something to me about a book. Is it going to be about my grandmother?"
    "I'm not sure of the focus yet. I'm still gathering information, but this theater group seems to be the point where their lives converged."
    He frowned as he looked back at the picture. "I didn't realize my grandmother ever acted on the stage."
    "She didn't tell you about the community theater she was involved in back in the seventies?"
    "I can't recall her ever talking about that time of her life."
    "Maybe you just weren't listening."
    "I'm very close to my grandmother, so I think I do listen to her," he snapped.
    A different kind of spark sizzled between them now as anger and irritation moved through his deep blue gaze. His expression reminded her very much of his grandfather, Patrick Callaway. Apparently, she was not making a good impression when it came to the Callaway men.
    "Okay." She took the photo out of his hand and put it back into the box.
    "What is all that stuff? Are those diaries?" he asked.
    "I'm not sure. Molly Harper put together some things for me to look through in anticipation of my visit."
    "I heard Molly had a stroke."
    "Yes. I didn't know that until I got here. But I'm hoping she'll recover quickly. In the meantime, I'm going to talk to her friends and look through what she had already put together. Sorry again about running into you. I hope I didn't hurt your hand."
    "It was already hurting."
    "How did you break your fingers?"
    "I got thrown on my ass when a building exploded."
    Her eyes widened. "Seriously? Was it a bomb or something?"
    "No, it was a fire. I'm a firefighter."
    "Oh, that makes a little more sense. You were lucky not to break more than your fingers."
    "So they tell me. But I would have been luckier if I hadn't broken anything at all. I'm probably going to miss at least one shift now."
    "You're that eager to get back to work?"
    "It's what I do."
    "And getting blown out of a building doesn't make you reconsider your career choice?"
    "Not for a second."
    "How do you do it?" she asked curiously. "How do you choose to put yourself in danger every time you go to work?"
    Her question seemed to take him by surprise. "I don't think about the danger. I just look at the job in front of me."
    She nodded, thinking he'd repeated her father's answer to the same question pretty much word for word. She hadn't liked the answer when her father said it, and she didn't really like it now. But what this man did with his life was none of her business.
    "Whatever," she said, moving past him.
    "Hey, wait a second."
    She paused on the bottom step, looking back at him. "What?"
    "Why did you ask me that?"
    "No reason."
    "I don't believe you."
    "Believe whatever you want," she said, turning her back on him.
    As she walked to the car she couldn't help thinking it was just her kind of luck that the first man to make her heart beat faster had to be a firefighter, a risk-taker. She didn't go out with men like that. She'd watched her mom worry every time her dad put on his cop's uniform.
    Her father had probably never known how much his wife