Can a chance reunion spark a Yuletide proposal?

Anything can happen in Sugar Falls!

Home for the holidays with her adopted son from Ghana, Hannah Gregson runs straight into her former flame—fire chief Isaac Jones. Though the pair are determined to keep their distance, the local matchmakers throw them together at every holiday event, and Hannah’s son worships the brave ex-soldier. If Isaac isn’t careful, he just may go from hero to family man by Christmas!

CHRISTY JEFFRIES graduated from the University of California, Irvine, with a degree in criminology, and received her juris doctor from California Western School of Law. But drafting court documents and work-ing in law enforcement was merely an apprenticeship for her current career in the dynamic field of mummyhood and romance writing. She lives in Southern California with her patient husband, two energetic sons and one sassy grandmother. Follow her online at christyjeffries.com.

Also by Christy Jeffries

A Proposal for the Officer

A Family Under the Stars

The Makeover Prescription

The Matchmaking Twins

From Dare to Due Date

Waking Up Wed

A Marine for His Mum

The Maverick’s Bridal Bargain

The Maverick’s Christmas to

Remember

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

The Firefighter’s Christmas Reunion

Christy Jeffries

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07849-8

THE FIREFIGHTER’S CHRISTMAS REUNION

© 2018 Christy Jeffries

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Francie Freetly Huttner—

my favorite mother-in-law, an adoring grammie

and the life of every party. Becoming your daughter

has been a wonderful blessing and I hope that

I always make you proud. Also, thank you for not

deleting my voice mail when I called your house

sixteen years ago looking for your son…

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Chief Isaac Jones commanded the stainless steel griddle in the kitchen of the Grange Hall the same way he did the Sugar Falls Fire Station—with a steady hand and a slight wonder that he’d ended up in this position in the first place.

Flipping a row of pancakes, he caught the flash of a blue shirt and gold neckerchief out of the corner of his eye. “Hey, partner,” Isaac said to one of the young Cub Scouts balancing three loaded paper plates between two small hands. “Can you find Mister Jonesy out there and tell him we’re gonna need more batter?”

“We’re almost out of syrup, too,” the chief of police, who also happened to be the pack leader for Troop 1307, said from the pass-through window separating the kitchen from the rows of tables and chairs set up in the main room. “I’ll run to Duncan’s Market and grab everything they have on their shelves.”

“I knew I should’ve ordered all the supplies before I left,” Isaac mumbled to no one in particular. It might be the last Saturday of October, but Sugar Falls was experiencing an unprecedented heat wave, and the unusually high temperatures meant nobody wanted to linger in the overheated kitchen this morning. When he’d originally volunteered the fire department to cosponsor the Scouts’ pancake breakfast fund-raiser, he hadn’t anticipated that the National Guard would move his unit’s annual two-week training up an entire month. Which meant that he hadn’t been in Sugar Falls ordering supplies for today.

“What can I do to help?” someone asked over the whirling of the industrial fan behind him.

The back of Isaac’s neck tingled at the familiar sound of the woman’s voice. His breathing stuttered. He hadn’t seen her in over ten years, and last he’d heard, she was joining the Peace Corps or a similar outfit volunteering in Africa somewhere. So surely it couldn’t be...

His dread was confirmed the second he turned around. Hannah Gregson.

His lungs refused to draw air for at least ten seconds as she stood there, her blond hair twisted into a messy knot and her proud shoulders pushed back as though she was ready to take on the world’s problems. She didn’t wear an ounce of makeup, but her complexion was as pure and fresh as it had been the summer after their senior year of high school.

“Your pancakes are burning,” she said, grabbing the spatula out of his clenched hand and easily swinging her tall, lithe body in front of his to scoop the blackened circles off the griddle.

Had she not recognized him?

Sure, Isaac had filled out a bit since he was eighteen, and he no longer sported the longer, fuller curls he’d worn in his youth. In fact, his hair was more of a fade now, a shorter style he’d grown accustomed to when he’d joined the Army after college. But he hadn’t changed that much.

Of course, the last time she’d seen Isaac was the night of that Labor Day bonfire and neither one of them had been at their finest.

He cleared his throat. “What are you doing here?”

“Making pancakes?” She tossed a cheeky smile over her shoulder. It was then that recognition finally dawned in her pale blue eyes and he experienced a tiny rush of satisfaction that she appeared to be as thrown off by his presence as he was by hers. “Isaac?”

“What’s this about you needing more batter?” Uncle Jonesy asked as he strode into the kitchen at that exact second. The old cowboy took one look at Hannah and said, “Aw, hell.”

“Hi, Jonesy,” Hannah said, lifting the spatula in a feeble wave. Good. At least she was now aware of the uneasiness circling the confines of this kitchen.

Jonesy was quick to recover, though, because he stepped around the stainless steel worktable in the center of the room and lifted Hannah up into a big bear hug. She let out a surprised squeak and Isaac’s uncle chuckled. “I heard you were back in town, hon.”

Isaac’s eyebrows shot to his hairline. He had? It would’ve been nice if the old man had given him a heads-up.

“I just got back a couple of weeks ago,” she said, and Isaac realized that Hannah must’ve arrived right after he’d left for his Guard training. He hooked his thumbs into his pockets, aiming for a casualness he didn’t feel as he studied her. They never had been able to stay around each other long enough to make things work.

“I bet your mama and daddy are excited you’re finally back in Idaho.” Jonesy smiled.

The Gregsons were originally from Boise. Summer kids, like Isaac, who only visited Sugar Falls during the warm months when they were out on school break. After he moved into the dorms at Yale, he’d heard through the grapevine that Hannah had decided to save money by going to Boise State, which must’ve been a real coincidence since Carter Mahoney was also attending that school on a full ride track-and-field scholarship. After hearing that she’d also gone home with Carter for Thanksgiving that same year, Isaac had made it a point to avoid any conversations that had to do with Hannah Gregson and where she was living. Or who she was seeing.

After ten years, he certainly didn’t want to hear about it now. Rocking back onto the heels of his work boots, Isaac heard the annoyance in his own voice when he asked, “Are you two gonna sit around and catch up or are we going to make some pancakes?”

“Guess I’ll run out and try to wrangle us some more mix.” His uncle’s gaze shifted between them as he scrubbed the gray whiskers on his ruddy face, probably eager to beat a hasty retreat. Deserter.

“Then I’ll get started on another bowl of batter.” Hannah passed the spatula to Isaac, her long, slender fingers coming into contact with his palm. A heat that had nothing to do with the nearby empty griddle spread through his gut.

“You don’t need to help.” Isaac’s tone came out more harsh and dismissive than he’d intended. “What I mean is that the fire department and the Scouts are putting the breakfast on. So we don’t really need any outside volunteers.”

“Hmm.” She looked around the empty kitchen. “It appears that you’re rather short-staffed at the moment.”

Okay, so that was slightly true. But he’d rather have no staff than have a bossy do-gooder like Hannah Gregson near him. Her mere presence echoed everything that his venture capitalist mother had drilled into him as a kid. Being an African American woman married to an older white investment banker, Isaac’s mom constantly had to prove herself at her husband’s bank before launching her own private equity firm and taking the biotech world by storm. Whether it was a grade at the science fair or a game at the county fair, his mother always insisted that her only child be better than the best.

Maybe that ingrained competitiveness was why Hannah’s intrinsic need to lead by example had always come across as a challenge to Isaac.

And today was no different.

“I’m only on my own temporarily,” he defended. “My crew is responding to a call at the elementary school.”

She gasped and he quickly held up his free palm, the one that wasn’t still tingling from her earlier touch. “Don’t worry. It’s the thirteenth time they’ve been out there this weekend. The district went with a low-bid contractor to install the new fire detection system. Most likely it’s another false alarm and they’ll be back in ten minutes.”

Hannah’s mouth relaxed, but her eyes sparkled with determination. “Then I can fill in for them in the meantime.”

With the growing number of young Scouts lining up at the pass-through window waiting for more plates of pancakes to serve, Isaac had to admit that he could use another hand. He studied her slender, strong fingers knotting the apron strings in front of her flat stomach. He just wasn’t quite sure he was ready for her hands.

Isaac cleared his throat. “Thanks for offering, but I’m sure one of the kids’ parents can come back here and help us.”

“I am one of the parents,” she replied, and Isaac’s heart slammed into his rib cage.

“Huh?” He must’ve looked as confused as he felt because Hannah rolled her eyes and jerked a thumb toward the dining area.

“My son’s a Cub Scout and his entire den is out there right now, wondering if these pancakes are going to cook themselves.”

“You have a son?”

Hannah could see Isaac Jones’s hazel eyes shifting back and forth as his brain made calculations. She hadn’t seen the man in ten years—since before he became a man, really—but some habits were hard to break and she could clearly see that his penchant for jumping to wrong conclusions was one of them. “Yes. His name is Samuel.”

“Is he...? I mean, uh...how old is your...um, son?” Isaac stammered. No doubt that he was expecting the age to coincide with the date they’d last been together and Hannah wondered if the guy’s ego knew no bounds.

Of course, with those wide shoulders and that perfectly warm brownskin with bronze undertones, he was definitely handsome enough to have an ego.

Instead of answering, though, she focused her trembling hands on the task of opening up the only box of pancake mix she could find and dumping it into a stainless steel bowl. After the way Isaac had once broken her trust and her heart, he didn’t even deserve to ask her about the weather, let alone such a personal question.

But her enjoyment at letting him squirm was short-lived because Sammy came into the kitchen at that exact moment. Hannah’s heart melted at her six-year-old’s hesitant steps and his round, wide eyes under the stiff blue cap. Straightening his gold neckerchief, she quietly asked, “How’s it going out there?”

Sammy tugged at her apron and Hannah bent down so she could hear his whispery, soft voice. “Those people sure eat a lot.”

“I know.” Hannah stroked a hand along the boy’s smooth ebony cheek. She’d read all the books and talked to countless other families about the transitioning effects of cross-cultural adoptions and children relocating overseas, especially for a child who had spent most of his life in a village orphanage in Ghana until he’d moved into a small cottage on the same premises with Hannah. “But don’t worry. We will have plenty of food for everyone. Do you want to help me mix up more pancakes?”

“No, thank you,” her son replied a bit more loudly, his accent making him sound almost British. “Uncle Luke said I could help him count out the change in the box. My cousins told me I need to learn how much the coins are worth so that the other kids at school won’t steal my lunch money and buy pudding cups with it.”

Hannah scrunched her nose. Her twin nephews were already proving to be a horrible influence on Sammy. But at least the nine-year-olds were coaxing the shy boy out of his shell and attempting to protect their newest family member. She gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze and tried to ignore Isaac’s blatant stare from the other side of the kitchen as Sammy walked out, only slightly more confident than he’d been when he entered.

“Was that your son?” Isaac asked, his voice even deeper and smoother than it had been when they were teenagers.

Stiffening her spine as straight as it would go, she turned to confront the man she’d stupidly fallen for all those years ago.

“I adopted him while I was in Africa on a Teachers Without Borders program.”

He slowly nodded and she watched the relief drain over his face. Then one side of his full lips quirked up, immediately reminding her body of the way his mischievous smile had always had the ability to draw her in. “So you became a teacher after all.”

Hannah grunted, choking down her outrage. How dare he take pride in the memory of their late-night talks sitting on the tailgate of his Uncle Jonesy’s old, rusted-out pickup truck? The conversations where she’d told him about her ambitions and her dreams and he’d told her that she was going to make the world a better place. She cracked an egg so hard, half the shell fell into her mixing bowl.

Luckily, she was saved from having to make any further casual small talk when his uncle swung through the door, balancing a sack of pancake mix in each gnarled hand. “Look what I found! No thanks to Freckles over at the Cowgirl Up Café, mind you. That ol’ gal cursed me up and down a blue streak for not knowin’ that her flapjacks were made from scratch.”

“So then where’d you get these?” Isaac stepped away from the stove to relieve Jonesy of half his load.

“One of the ladies from that quilting group over at the community church brought them over, saying we could borrow theirs as long as we replace it before their homeless outreach breakfast next week.”

Hannah wanted to ask if they’d had a sudden outpouring of homeless people relocating to the touristy mountain town of Sugar Falls. When she’d left two years ago, there’d been a handful of regulars stopping by the shelter for an occasional hot meal, but that was usually only in the snowy, winter months.

However, she kept her lips firmly clamped, not sure if she was ready to find out what else had changed around here since she’d been gone.

As she whisked, Isaac turned to the stove and she tried not to peek at his back. He’d always had those slim hips and long legs, but when had his shoulders gotten so broad? Probably around the same time that his jawline had gotten more chiseled.

Stop it, she commanded herself. This tingling sensation under her skin wasn’t because she was still attracted to Isaac, it was simply her body’s way of responding to the shock of seeing him after all these years. In fact, she hadn’t even recognized him at first. Maybe because she’d been so successful at blocking out all thoughts of the one guy who’d ever broken her heart.

Of course, his curls were gone and his hair was now cropped close. Plus, Hannah never would have expected to see him wearing pants, since she’d only spent time with him during the summer months. Actually, it was a bit jarring not to see him in a pair of board shorts and dressed in a shirt with sleeves that hadn’t been cut off. What wasn’t unusual, though, was to see him in a Sugar Falls Fire Department tee since his uncle had always run the volunteer department.

Why hadn’t anyone in her family warned her that Isaac was visiting this fall? Not that her brothers didn’t have their own busy lives, but they should’ve known that she would want some advance notice that she might run into her ex-boyfriend. While they’d both joined the Navy two years before that fateful summer, they had to have seen the grainy footage of that video someone had taken of Isaac and then posted on the internet.

Her body shuddered at the suppressed memory. Despite the fact that it had been taken down twenty-four hours later, everybody had seen it. The entire town had heard his recorded accusations and she’d never been in such a hurry to return home to Boise.

In fact, after college, Hannah had initially hesitated to take the teaching position in Sugar Falls. She only accepted when she’d been convinced that all the gossip about her had died down. It’d helped knowing that during Isaac’s irate monologue online, he’d told the person holding the video camera that he was leaving for good and would never come back to Idaho for as long as he lived.

Looked like that was another promise Isaac Jones had broken.

Channeling all the old hurt into her whisk, Hannah made bowl after bowl of pancake batter, refusing to think about the man standing only a few feet away from her. She kept her attention focused on the pass-through window and on the boys approaching in their Scout uniforms. She hoped Sammy was fitting in with them and wasn’t overwhelmed by all the new faces. Maybe she shouldn’t have signed him up for extracurricular activities so soon. But he’d be starting a brand new school on Monday and she knew how rough the first day could be for a transfer student who was already accustomed to American schools. It would be twice as awkward for her son.

After a tense hour of Hannah and Isaac each pretending that the other wasn’t there, Sammy rushed into the kitchen wearing a big grin, revealing two missing teeth. “We made four hundred and twenty-eight dollars. How much is that in cedis?”

Hannah had an app on her smartphone that would convert US dollars into Ghanaian currency, but she couldn’t remember where she’d left her purse. She was about to say as much to Sammy when she heard an older boy in a tan Scout uniform snicker. “That’s worth two goats and a water buffalo where you come from.”

Anger flooded her and she was about to admonish the mean-spirited kid when Isaac called out, “Hey, JP, since you seem to know so much about livestock, why don’t you go help Scooter Deets fill up those slop buckets he brought over from his ranch. He needs someone to sort through the trash for any leftover pancake bits that might’ve gotten thrown out. I’m sure his hogs will appreciate it.”

“But that’s disgusting,” the bigger boy said. “Those trash bags are covered in syrup and junk.”

Isaac’s only response was a steely scowl that didn’t invite any more back talk. Hannah should learn how to imitate that expression, since it might prove useful in her classroom full of fifth-graders this school year. JP pivoted with a huff, muttering under his breath as he shoved past a smirking eight-year-old who hid a box of plastic gloves behind his back. Apparently her son wasn’t the only boy who’d been picked on by this bully.

“Kids like that are jealous of worldly guys like us.” Isaac finally turned toward Sammy and gave him a wink. Worldly? Maybe. But guys like us? Please. As if her ex-boyfriend was anything like her sweet son. However, before Hannah could say as much, the man continued. “When I was younger and first came to Sugar Falls to visit my Uncle Jonesy, some of the other boys in town didn’t know what to think because I was new and different. But my uncle kept a close watch to make sure nobody messed with me. So if JP gives you any more problems, let me know and I’ll set him straight.”

“I will.” Sammy nodded as he approached Isaac, curiosity apparent in his expression.

Hannah felt her heels press back onto the ground, her calf muscles relaxing as the fight drained out of her. It wasn’t like she could get mad at the person who’d just defended her son. Then again, it was her role as Sammy’s mother to be his number one protector. After all, it wasn’t like Isaac would be around in the future to take on all the bullies of the world.

“Why are you making them so fat?” her son asked as Isaac poured the last of the batter onto the griddle.

“What do you mean, big guy?” Isaac asked, and Hannah tried to steel her heart against the sweet tone of his voice. Sammy was a few inches shorter and much thinner than the other six-year-olds in his den. So his smile lit up even more at being referred to as big guy.

“In Ghana, our pancakes are real skinny. Like pieces of paper.”

Isaac knelt down to speak to the boy and Hannah strained to hear his reply. “I’ll tell you what. If you get the recipe for me, next time we have a pancake breakfast, we’ll make them your way. I had some like that once when I lived in Morocco and I bet everyone in town will love ’em.”

Something tugged low in Hannah’s belly. Isaac hadn’t said that he’d make Sammy his own batch, which would only have made her son feel more different and out of place. Instead, he’d had the perfect response, offering to bring a piece of Sammy’s old life to share with everyone in his new life.

It was too bad Isaac Jones never kept his word.

Chapter Two

The strident bell pierced Hannah’s eardrums and she frantically looked around the classroom for her son, who’d been helping her staple the words Happy Halloween to the bulletin board that had belonged to Mrs. Fernandez before the teacher had gone on maternity leave. Sammy dropped the stapler and had his hands covering his own ears. His pupils were wide but, thankfully, not filled with terror.

“It’s just the fire alarm,” she told him, using her calmest teacher voice. “Come on. I’ll show you where we line up.”

She reached for his hand and, though his expression was filled with a mix of curiosity and tension, he immediately latched onto Hannah and followed her out to the nearly empty hallway lined with student artwork from earlier this year. His head pivoted in every possible direction and he asked, “Where is the fire?”

“There probably isn’t a fire, sweetie. Otherwise, we’d smell the smoke. My bet is they’re just testing the alarm to make sure it works.” A few other teachers—who, like her, must’ve come in on a Sunday to catch up on lesson plans and grading—trickled out of various rooms and toward the front door. Some of the tension left Sammy’s fingers as he saw that nobody else was concerned about the constant peal of the bell. Hannah raised her voice to be heard over it, as well as the siren on the fire engine pulling into the drop-off lane. “At the beginning of the school year, the teachers show all the kids what we do during a fire drill. But since we’re both coming in a little late this semester, we’ll get to figure it out together.”

It might’ve sounded like a grand adventure, except Hannah was pretty sure she hadn’t yet explained about fire drills to Sammy. Actually, there was a lot she hadn’t explained to the boy, but she hadn’t wanted to overwhelm him with information. There’d been classrooms at the children’s home where he’d lived and he was excited about attending school. Although he had an accent from growing up in the Western region of Ghana, the orphanage had been founded by British missionaries. There wouldn’t be much of a language barrier, just a cultural one. Besides, he was a smart child. Not everything was new and different, so there was no need to be patronizing. Her plan was to stick close to him and try to explain things as he experienced them for the first time.

Hannah basked in the sheer awe on her son’s face as she realized that this was the first time Sammy had seen an American fire engine up close. But that shared excitement gave way to an unexpected wobble in Hannah’s stomach.

Speaking of firsts, she’d also never before witnessed the sight of Isaac Jones in turnout gear. Well, at least, in the yellow pants and red suspenders. It was still unseasonably warm and neither he nor the other three people exiting the huge red truck wore their jackets.

Whoa. It was bad enough that he’d broken his vow to never visit Sugar Falls again, but since when did the city allow tourists to ride around in the fire engine? Not that he was a typical tourist.

Still. Isaac had been a summer kid, like her, and since it was now closing in on November, it should be well past time for him to be going back to...where? Where did he live now?

Mrs. Dunn, the school nurse, bustled past a stunned Hannah and greeted the firefighters. “Sorry you guys had to come out again, Chief. I thought the alarm company had fixed everything yesterday.”

Who was she calling chief? Certainly not Isaac. Grabbing onto the metal handrail on the stairs in front of the school, Hannah racked her brain for the slightest scrap of recollection about their brief, and extremely awkward, conversation yesterday morning in the Grange Hall kitchen. Last night, she’d gone over every word, facial expression and movement he’d made that day. Had she missed something?

The blue T-shirt he was wearing was very similar to the one he’d had on at the pancake breakfast. The one she’d assumed he’d gotten from his uncle who led the volunteer crew. Although, this time, Hannah’s eyes zeroed in on the words Chief Jones stenciled in white letters over one of his well-formed pectoral muscles.

Oh. No.

Isaac paused only for a second when his gaze landed on her. If Hannah hadn’t already been gawking at him, she would’ve missed it. But he was quick to recover and turned all of his attention toward Nurse Dunn. “You might want to call them out again. In the meantime, have everyone stay here while we go make sure the building is clear.”

Hannah’s palms were cool and clammy, which must’ve made it easy for Sammy’s fingers to slip out of her hand. Before she could pry her stunned mouth open and stop him, he was bounding down the stairs and sprinting toward Isaac.

She should’ve expected it. Her son loved big trucks and he loved running every time he got the chance. But she was still in a state of shock.

“Can I come with you?” Sammy asked, further surprising Hannah. Her son normally didn’t warm up to people very quickly and he was always way too shy to ask for what he wanted.

Isaac smiled at the boy and bent down. “Not right this second, big guy. But as soon as we make sure that there isn’t a fire inside, I can let you climb up into the engine and pull the switch for the siren.” The man’s hazel gaze flickered over Hannah and he amended, “If you’re still here when we come out.”

She sucked air through her clenched teeth. What was that supposed to mean? Did Isaac think she was just going to run off at the mere sight of him? If so, he had another thought coming. She marched down the steps and recaptured Sammy’s hand, forcing a tense smile at her son, but refusing to make eye contact with Isaac. “We can wait.”

The truth was, she couldn’t leave, even if she wanted to. Her purse and car keys were still inside her classroom. Two teachers she’d known from her previous years at the elementary school were huddled with the nurse on the front sidewalk. However, their whispering stopped when Hannah looked their way. Not that she could blame them for their curiosity at seeing one of their recently returned coworkers suddenly confronted with the reappearance of an old flame. But it still made Hannah’s nerves twist.

She let out a sigh when Sammy tugged on her hand, pulling her closer to check out the fire engine. While she definitely did not share her son’s enthusiasm for the monstrous vehicle that had brought her ex-boyfriend literally screeching back into her life, at least Hannah now had an excuse to avoid any conversations where she might be asked about why her skin had gone as red as the truck the second Isaac appeared.

Unfortunately, her relief was short-lived because the incessantly loud ringing came to a sudden halt. In fact, in the echo of the fire alarm’s silence, she could hear her pulse picking up tempo. That meant Isaac was coming back this way and now it was Hannah’s internal alarm bells going off.

“All clear,” one of the other firefighters—the driver—announced and Hannah was surprised to see that Nurse Dunn and the other two teachers had already left. Hannah’s car was the only one remaining in the lot and she again silently cursed herself for not bringing her purse and keys with her. The female firefighter came out next and Hannah found herself hoping that one of them could quickly show Sammy the fire engine so they could sneak back to her classroom before Isaac arrived.

But there was no such luck. Isaac, looking way more confident and smug than he had a right to, came loping down the steps. He passed a clipboard to the fourth firefighter and said, “Write up the report, Rook. I have a junior officer here who needs to learn how to drive the engine.”

Isaac gave Sammy a high five and then the boy sprinted after him toward the driver’s side of the big red truck.

“No problem, Chief,” the baby-faced young man said before smiling at Hannah. She looked at his nametag. Clausson. He didn’t look familiar to her. In fact, she realized as she scanned the other firefighters’ faces, she didn’t know any of them.

“Apparently, the volunteer fire department is finally recruiting people under the age of fifty-five.” Hannah’s forced chuckle sounded more like a nervous giggle and the younger man lifted one dark eyebrow at her.

“Don’t worry. Jonesy and Scooter and the rest of the elders are still around picking up volunteer shifts. But now that the city also has a paid department, our full-time crews are a bit...oh, shall we say...less seasoned.” Clausson gave her a wink, but her heart was already rioting inside her chest, so it didn’t have the flirtatious effect he might’ve intended.

“You mean you’re not a volunteer?” she asked, though she had a feeling she already knew the answer.

“None of us are today, miss.”

So if Isaac wasn’t a volunteer, this wasn’t just some short-term gig for him. Which meant that he wasn’t here temporarily. Hannah forced herself to breathe deeply. She was seriously going to throttle her older brothers for not warning her.

Young Clausson leaned closer and lowered his voice. “If you want to come by the brand-new station, I can arrange to give you, uh...a private tour.”

“Hey, Rook.” The female firefighter walked between them and tapped on Clausson’s clipboard. “If the chief catches you putting the moves on his ex-girlfriend instead of writing that report, you’re going to be on laundry detail indefinitely.”

Clausson’s whiskerless cheeks turned a shade of pink as he muttered a four-letter word and scrambled away so quickly that Hannah choked on the sudden cloud of overpowering cologne left in his wake.

Well, she was either choking on the scent, or on the female firefighter’s unexpected statement. Hannah looked down at the woman’s nametag—Rodriguez—then cleared her throat. “I’m not really Isaac’s ex-girlfriend, you know.”

“Sorry about that.” Rodriguez transferred her helmet from one arm to the other and gave a sheepish grimace before extending her hand. “I’m Olivia. I’ve only lived here for eighteen months and I’m still learning how to navigate small-town gossip.”

“Hannah Gregson.” She swallowed, returning the handshake. “There’s...uh...gossip? I mean, obviously there’s gossip, but I just hadn’t expected it already.”

She was dying to ask what people were saying, but she closed her eyes and gave a brief shake of her head. Nope. Hannah didn’t care back then what people thought and she certainly didn’t care now.

“The talk is why I assumed something was going on between you two,” Olivia explained and Hannah’s fingers curled into her hipbones as she twisted the fabric inside her jeans’ pockets.

“I guess, technically, we’re exes, but it was more of a summer fling when we were in high school.” She attempted a casual shrug but her shoulders were too stiff to properly execute it. “Maybe two summer flings. But it wasn’t like we had an ongoing official status or anything since it was strictly only a part-time, seasonal kinda relationship. Really, things didn’t get all that hot and heavy until after graduation...oh, my gosh, I need to stop talking.”

Hannah pinched the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut so she wouldn’t have to see Rodriguez’s response to her long-winded ramblings. “Anyway, it was all so long ago, I hardly ever think about it anymore.” She gave the woman a tense smile. “I should go check on my son.”

Her legs were trembling with a combination of embarrassment and annoyance as she walked toward the cab of the fire engine. Embarrassment that she’d just spilled her guts to a complete stranger who also happened to work for Isaac. And annoyance because Hannah hadn’t been better prepared to deal with suddenly having the man back in her life.

Watching the fire chief put his helmet on Sammy’s head as her son held on to the huge steering wheel, pretending to drive the truck, she felt a wave of tenderness battle against the rest of her raging emotions. Unfortunately, her irritation won out and she her rib cage expanded with each frustrated breath.

Hannah had never expected that the arrogant, rich teenager she’d once known would leave his perfectly mapped-out life on the East Coast and return to Sugar Falls, let alone move here permanently.

And who in the world had thought it would be a good idea to put someone like him in charge of the fire department, responsible for saving innocent people?

Indifference would have been Isaac’s first choice of reactions to seeing the woman who’d once held his teenage heart in her hands. Annoyance, or even anger, would also have been an expected response to seeing Hannah again, though, most of the aching bitterness he’d held on to throughout college had dissipated. Instead, Isaac found himself filled with a weird sort of curiosity about her and hadn’t stopped thinking about her since she’d showed up yesterday. And the last thing he wanted was for someone—especially her—to mistake that curiosity for renewed interest. He’d had ten years to grow wiser and thicken his skin. There was no way he’d fall under her spell a second time.

He looked over Sammy’s head at the woman standing on the opposite side of the cab of the fire engine, her lips twisted into a tight line while she eyeballed the two of them. Really, it wasn’t as if he was going toss her son into a raging inferno the second she took her eyes off him. Would it hurt Hannah to take a step back and maybe not frown quite so much?

Her blond hair was twisted into another messy bun secured to the top of her head with two pencils, and Isaac had to admit that her face was still as striking as ever, with strong, high cheekbones and aqua blue eyes that never used to be so guarded. So wary. Scanning past her faded flannel work shirt and down the length of her, he noticed that her legs were still long and lean, but her hips were just a little fuller. Everything about her was the same, except more. More mature, more compelling, more...arousing.

“Can I turn on the siren?” Sammy’s voice was soft and tentative, as though he was afraid to ask for what he wanted. Despite his reserved manner, amazement glowed out of the boy’s eyes and Isaac knew the kid was a goner. Just like Isaac had been the first time he’d visited his Uncle Jonesy and toured the old volunteer station.

Isaac stayed with his uncle the summer after his parents’ divorce and then returned every June through August after that. One would think that he and Hannah would’ve bonded over their status as “summer kids,” but she was more of a social activist than a socializer. It wasn’t until after they were sixteen that Little Miss Do-Gooder had come out of her shell and spoken more than a sentence to him at an impromptu car wash fund-raiser she’d organized to raise money for a local animal shelter.

It was also the first time that he’d ever seen her in a bathing suit and he would never forget the way she’d—

“Sammy, we should probably let the firefighters get back to work,” Hannah called through the open passenger door, interrupting Isaac’s steamy memory.

“Okay.” Her son’s shoulders slumped, but he didn’t let go of the steering wheel.

“Wait,” she said quickly. “Would you guys mind if I took a picture of him sitting there with the helmet on and everything?”

Isaac was used to kids and their fascination with fire engines and uniforms, so it was a pretty standard request from a doting parent. He attempted a casual shrug before replying, “No problem.”

She patted down her denim-clad hips before a blush stole up her cheeks. “I left my phone in the classroom.”

A flurry of emotions crossed Hannah’s face and Isaac could tell she was wrestling with whether to leave her precious son unattended with him or to forego the picture altogether. While Isaac hadn’t exactly been proud of the way he’d handled their breakup all those years ago, Hannah surely had to know that he wasn’t a complete monster. Even if he’d still been holding on to a ten-year-old grudge, which he clearly wasn’t, Isaac would never involve an innocent child in a petty dispute. Anyone who knew him would know that.

However, Hannah obviously hadn’t really known him back then and she certainly didn’t know him now. Otherwise, she wouldn’t always be expecting the worst from him. She wouldn’t have been so quick to move on after that night...

Taking pity on the kid, Isaac reached into his pocket and pulled out his own smartphone. He tapped on the camera icon before passing it through the cab of the truck. “Here, you can use mine.”

As her pupils darted down to the electronic device and back up to him, the changing expression on her face suggested she was struggling to make a decision. Isaac couldn’t help himself from adding, “Unless you have a better offer.”

Narrowing her eyes, she reached out so quickly, her fingers brushed across the back of his hand. Although the brief contact was only the result of him purposely goading her, it was the second time in the past forty-eight hours that the slightest touch from Hannah had sent his pulse skyrocketing.

But her words quickly brought him back down to earth. “As I recall, you were never hurting for any offers yourself.”

Isaac’s brow twisted in confusion. What in the hell was that supposed to mean? And was it his imagination, or did the phone tremble slightly as she held it up to frame the image?

Hannah moved the phone forward and backward, then immediately lowered the screen, revealing her sucked-in cheeks. Isaac flashed back to a memory of her doing the same thing whenever she’d been embarrassed. But the sweet memory was soon replaced with a less pleasant sensation when she finally said, “Would you mind backing up?”

He looked at the steel step he was standing on outside the driver’s side door. If he backed up any more, he’d be on the asphalt. His gaze returned to her and she gave him a tense nod, encouraging him to step down. “If you didn’t want me in the picture, you could’ve just said so.”

“I thought I did,” she mumbled, then she jerked her head toward Sammy with a pointed look that could only indicate that she was hoping to avoid any type of unpleasantness in front of her son.

She’d never been very good at confrontation, at least, not where Isaac had been concerned. And apparently she hadn’t gotten much better. Not that he’d come here looking for a fight; however, there was only so much professional courtesy he could extend. Community outreach was part of his job, rehashing the past was not. Keeping his mouth firmly shut, he jumped down off the rig and tried to pretend that he didn’t notice Hannah’s obvious change in tone when she sweetly told her son to count to three and say cheese.

Chapter Three

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that he was back in town,” Hannah said to her brother Luke as soon as Sammy ran out the back door to play with his older cousins.

“Who is he?” Carmen, her soon-to-be sister-in-law, asked as she set out a salad bowl full of mixed berries.

“Don’t ask,” her brother whispered to his fiancée.

“Isaac Jones!” Hannah might as well have shouted, her voice echoed so loudly inside the old Victorian home Luke’s family had just moved into. He turned to the pizza boxes she’d set on the counter, but not before she caught his eye roll.

“You mean the fire chief?” Carmen asked, then gave Luke a reprimanding look and closed the cardboard lid on his hand. “You get the boys washed up. I’ll set the table.”

“What table?” Luke asked, looking out of the kitchen and into the empty dining room. “Hannah kept everything when she moved back into our cabin.”

“First of all, you got Nana’s Oldsmobile and I got all of her outdated furniture, which I lovingly and painfully refurbished before I went to Ghana,” Hannah said slowly, as though she was explaining fairness to a first grader—for the eight hundredth time. “Secondly, it’s the Gregson family cabin, and I lived there first.”

“Ignore your brother.” Carmen gave a dismissive wave. “He’s wanted to live in town since he moved to Sugar Falls full time and when you got back, he finally had an excuse to buy this old fixer-upper. Anyway, do you and Chief Jones have history or something?”

“History? Ha!” Luke said around a mouthful of pepperoni he’d sneaked off one of the pizzas. “You guys were barely outta high school. Shouldn’t you be over that by now?”

Carmen’s eyes lit up. She was a cop, and Hannah had a feeling that she was dying to investigate something other than who was at fault for the latest fender bender in the Duncan’s Market parking lot.

“Of course I’m over him,” Hannah argued. Her head pounded and her arms ached from cutting out all of those pumpkin shapes from cardstock before stapling them to her new bulletin board. The first day back at school was always chaotic, but since she was coming into the classroom halfway through the semester, this year was already proving to be an uphill battle in concentration. She tried to remind herself that she’d been lucky to get this last-minute teaching assignment when she’d rushed home unexpectedly to be closer to her mom. Rubbing her temples, she added, “It’s just that it would’ve been nice to be forewarned that I’d have to see him on a regular basis. I didn’t even know that Sugar Falls had a real fire department now.”

Luke gestured at his wife’s blue uniform with a greasy thumb. “As soon as the residents of Sugar Falls voted to form their own police force, everyone knew that a fire station was going to be next. They’re even housed in the same building. On two separate sides, obviously.”

Hannah sighed. Before she’d left for Ghana, she’d attended every school board and city council meeting there was. She should’ve expected as much and normally would be the first to endorse the improvement of their town. But did they have to hire Isaac Jones?

“What are his qualifications, anyway?” she muttered to herself, but Carmen’s raised brow indicated she’d heard. “I mean, besides volunteering with his uncle and racing around town as if he had a siren permanently attached to anything he drove. Including that jet boat he used to drive way too fast on Rush Lake, showing off for all those girls from Sugar Falls High.”

“I remember that boat! That’s the one his dad bought him for his sixteenth birthday.” Luke smiled, then caught his bride-to-be’s eye and quickly cleared his throat. “I mean, I remember that it went fast. I don’t exactly recall the part about the girls...”

Carmen laughed at Luke’s flustered explanation. “Perhaps I should put on my bikini and grab a wakeboard to help jog your memory.”

Luke pulled his fiancée toward him and whispered something in her ear, causing her to squeal with laughter.

Hannah rolled her eyes at the smitten couple. “I lived in this town for five years after college and didn’t have so much as a blind date. I’m barely out of the country and you and Drew and every other single person in Sugar Falls are getting married off.”

“Technically,” Luke said, tapping his bare ring finger. “I’m still waiting for Carmen to make an honest man out of me.”

“Good luck with that,” Hannah said with a snort. Then she added, “How’re the wedding plans going?”

“Moving the date up to Thanksgiving week was a little tricky. We had to switch venues, make it more of a destination wedding so that Carmen’s family wouldn’t have so far to travel. But the sooner we have it, the easier it will be for Mom to...you know.”

The immediate silence grounded Hannah and reminded her that she had bigger issues to address in her life than the reappearance of Isaac Jones. Nobody had really brought up their mother’s recent diagnosis, as though to mention the cancer would cause it to spread more quickly.

The old house creaked and a shed door slammed shut outside, highlighting the uncomfortable quiet that had suddenly settled between the three of them. Finally, Carmen said, “I was hoping you’d be one of my bridesmaids.”

Hannah practically sighed, grateful to have the subject changed back to something more pleasant. “Wait. Would I have to walk down the aisle with Drew? Because nothing says ‘lonely spinster’ like having your brother as an escort.”

“You would only walk with him at the end,” Luke said, then smirked. “Unless you want me to ask Isaac Jones to be my best man?”

Hannah’s response was to pick up a plump strawberry from the fruit salad and throw it at his head.

“Is someone going to fill me in on whatever is going on between you and Isaac?” Carmen asked.

Luke shook his head at his fiancée. “Don’t ask or she might tell you.”

“Do you know what he had the gall to do earlier today?” Hannah continued as though she hadn’t heard them. “He tried to squeeze into a picture I was taking of Sammy.”

Her brother used his finger to wipe off the red juice dribbling down his cheek. “Where was this picture being taken?”

“Inside the fire truck.” Hannah looked down at one of her jagged thumbnails. Not that she was the type of woman who had time for manicures, but she also wasn’t normally a nail biter. Or, at least, she hadn’t been one in years. Just two sightings of Isaac and less than forty-eight hours later, her nails were bitten to the quick.

“Technically...” Carmen handed Luke a damp paper towel to wipe his face “...I believe it’s called a fire engine.”

“What did he do when you asked him to turn the taxpayers’ fire engine—” Luke winked at his fiancée “—into your personal portrait studio?”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t like I asked for special treatment or anything. In fact, if it’d been up to me, I would’ve kept as far away from him as possible. But you should’ve seen how Sammy’s eyes lit up when he put on that helmet. My son is obviously way more important to me than a meaningless grudge some arrogant firefighter still hasn’t gotten over ten years later.”

“Hello?” Carmen’s hand shot up into the air and she waved her fingers. “I’m still lost over here. What grudge? What’s going on between you and Isaac?”

“Nothing!” Hannah wailed, then she lowered her voice when she spotted the kids playing outside the window. “Nothing is going on between us and it never will again.”

“Again?”

“We dated briefly when we were teenagers.” Actually, they’d done a lot more than date, but Hannah wasn’t going to further humiliate herself by admitting to her brother and his fiancée how much more. Ten years ago, Hannah had been much more innocent—in more ways than one—and had thought Isaac was “the one.” Currently, though, both pride and hindsight forced her to downplay how foolish she’d once been. “It really wasn’t that big of a deal.”

“As you can see,” Luke grabbed for another slice of pepperoni, not even bothering to conceal his sneakiness this time. “Hannah’s totally over him. She’s only mentioned him about thirty-eight times since she got here tonight.”

“No I haven’t.” Hannah crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I didn’t even say a word about the video.”

“What video?” Carmen asked and Hannah’s jaw snapped shut.

“Somebody posted a breakup video on YouTube ten years ago,” Luke explained, as though it was perfectly normal to end a relationship in an online rant to the entire world. Then he looked at Hannah. “Did you ever find out who did it?”

But she kept her lips locked in place. Why hadn’t it ever occurred to her that Isaac wasn’t necessarily responsible for posting it? And did it even matter? All that mattered was that he’d said the words.

“What do you mean, a breakup video?” Carmen asked.

When it became apparent that Hannah wasn’t going to speak, Luke continued. “I forget the exact words he used, but it went something like, ‘Hannah Gregson was done with me so she moved on to the next guy.’”

Actually, it was Hannah Gregson is the ultimate user. She plays all innocent until she gets what she wants and moves on to the next guy. Well, guess what, Gregson? It’s over and you’ll never see me in Sugar Falls again. Too bad you just lost out on the best guy you’ll get. Not that Hannah had replayed it in her mind a thousand times.

“Ouch.” Carmen frowned, not even knowing the worst part. Isaac’s unpleasant speech had come right after they’d spent the night together. “How old was he when he did this?”

“Eighteen,” Luke replied. “And, in his defense, his eyes were pretty watery at the time, as though he’d been drowning his sorrow in a case of cheap beer.”

“In his defense?” Hannah finally spoke up. A bit too loudly. “You’re supposed to be my brother, you know? Whatever happened to having each other’s back?”

“You want me drive over to the fire station and beat him up for you?” he asked, and Hannah tilted her head as she pondered his offer. “Geez, I was kidding, Hannah. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.”

“Because of your job?” She nibbled at the cuticle on her thumb. Her brother was a former SEAL who was now the officer in charge of Navy recruitment for the entire region.

“No, because of his.” Luke let out a deep breath when Hannah shot him a look of confusion. “Here’s the deal. I know this might surprise you, but your precious nephews got into a little trouble at the Fourth of July picnic.”

“Those angels?” Hannah looked out the window to where Aiden was tying each side of a kite to Caden’s shoulders as they directed Sammy to run a tape measure from the top of a ladder to an oak tree in the middle of the yard. Carmen groaned before dashing outside to get them.

“I know. It’s hard to believe.” Luke chuckled. “I won’t bore you with the details, but it involved a bag of hot dog buns, some firecrackers and Mayor Johnston’s hand-carved cornhole set. Anyway, Isaac was on duty nearby and had the blaze put out before it did any real damage. But he also gave the boys a solid lecture about fire safety and made them honorary junior deputies. Since then, they haven’t so much as blown out a candle, let alone gotten anywhere near an open flame. So I kinda owe the guy.”

“Well, I don’t owe him a damn thing,” Hannah replied.

She’d already given Isaac Jones way too much of herself.

By seven o’clock on Monday morning, most of the weekend tourists had left town and Sugar Falls was already bustling with locals returning to work. Isaac had just gotten off duty and decided to stop at Duncan’s to pick up some groceries before heading back to his uncle’s house.

Walking across the street from the fire station to the only market in town, he used his cell phone to call Jonesy, who answered on the first ring.

“Do we have any eggs?” Isaac asked.

“Not sure,” the old man replied.

Isaac really needed to move into his own place and stock his own fridge. “What about milk?”

“Might have a little left.”

A horn honked from somewhere down the street and Isaac heard the echo of the same honk on the speaker. “Where are you?”

“On my way to the Cowgirl Up Café to meet Scooter for breakfast,” Jonesy said in a slow drawl.

Looking over his shoulder, he spotted his uncle a few hundred feet away, riding his horse in the middle of the road, a line of cars gridlocked behind them. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Isaac disconnected the phone and counted patiently until Jonesy cantered up to him. “I thought Mayor Johnston told you not to ride Klondike on the street anymore.”

“He did. But then the folks over at city hall threw a walleyed fit when I started riding her on the sidewalk. So unless they’re gonna put a horse trail through downtown, me and Klondike are gonna take advantage of any road my tax dollars pay for.”

“You could drive your truck, you know.”

“Then Klondike would miss out on those big, juicy apples Freckles gives her over at the café.” His uncle patted the horse’s spotted gray neck. “You like your treats, don’tcha, girl?”

“Well, maybe you should at least ride her in the bicycle lane,” Isaac suggested.

“That’s for bikes. You wanna grab some breakfast with me and Scooter?”

Isaac studied the older man, looked at the parking lot of the market then glanced at his watch. As a kid, the highlights of his summer used to be when he’d get to spend time with Jonesy and Scooter, his uncle’s best friend, and listen to their countless stories. The two irreverent coots were staples in downtown Sugar Falls and loved to sit around talking about their days on the professional bull riding circuit, the action they saw in Vietnam and the latest prospects for the Boise State offensive line. They were both part of the volunteer fire department and mountain rescue team, but mostly they hung out gossiping about the locals and imparting unsolicited advice to anyone in their vicinity, peppering their conversations with the occasional conspiracy theory.

Isaac patted his empty stomach. He’d been out of town for a couple of weeks and hadn’t had Freckles’ country gravy in a while. Plus, it would be a good chance to catch up on the latest news. And by news, he meant information about Hannah Gregson and her sudden reentry into his life. “I guess I could go for some chicken-fried steak. But I’ll walk. And I’m a government employee, so if Mayor Johnston or Cessy Walker see you on that horse, I’m gonna keep on walking.”

The Cowgirl Up Café was only two blocks down Snowflake Boulevard, the main street that ran through the center of the Victorian-era downtown. Although he lived in Jonesy’s old cabin on Sugar Creek, Isaac spent most of his time at the new fire station, working out the kinks of turning a rural volunteer unit into a professional and efficiently run department. Proving to everyone that he would be the best fire chief this town had ever seen.

His mom had always pushed him to be the best at whatever he did. If it were up to his old man—Jonesy’s brother—Isaac would’ve been handed everything on a silver platter. Hank—now Henry—Jones left Sugar Falls the day he turned eighteen and never looked back. He’d made his fortune in the stock market and vowed that no relative of his would ever have to worry about money again.

It was probably the biggest thing that his parents fought about, when they bothered to spend any time together. His mother was a young intern when she’d met and married his father and Henry never quite got over the fact that his supposed trophy wife ended up out-earning him by their third year of marriage. Neither one had wanted children, but Henry had talked her into just one child in the hopes that it would slow his wife’s career path and turn her into a carpooling soccer mom.

Yet having Isaac only drove Rachel Jones to do better, to put in extra hours at the office, to make even more money. He was the wedge that had finally driven his parents apart. At least, that’s how he’d always felt.

If Henry would buy their son the latest gaming console, Rachel would send him outside to work with the gardener in order to “earn” time to play video games. When Henry had taken Isaac aboard his private yacht for two months on the Mediterranean, Rachel decided to send her biracial son to spend his summers with a cranky, older uncle in a simple cabin on a mountain in Idaho—about as far from their Upper East Side lifestyle as she could get him. She’d thought it’d be the perfect way to not only get back at Henry, but also make Isaac appreciate the finer things that money could buy, which would make him want to become an even greater success than his parents.

His mom’s goal of pushing Isaac to always rise above had worked and made him competitive at life. Just not at the career that she’d envisioned and thoroughly mapped out for him.

Because they were short-staffed until the latest batch of recruits graduated from the fire academy in Boise, Isaac had spent the past two days working double overnight shifts to cover for one of his deputy firefighters. He hadn’t seen his uncle since the pancake breakfast on Saturday. While Isaac had been relieved to avoid Jonesy’s nosy questions about the return of his ex-girlfriend, he also hadn’t been able to gather any useful information.

When they walked through the saloon-style front doors of the restaurant, Isaac had to blink a few times to accustom himself to the bright purple and turquoise-blue decor. He’d been coming to the café since the summer after sixth grade, and the eclectic decorating style was no clearer to him now than it had been back then—he could never figure out if it looked more like a rustic bunkhouse on a ranch or a sequin-covered sorority house.

“Darlin’!” yelled Freckles, the owner and interior decorator. At least, he assumed she was the one responsible for the look of the place—judging from her brightly dyed orange hair, red cowboy boots, skintight leopard-print leggings and low-cut lime-green T-shirt that boasted We’ll Butter Your Biscuit. “When’d you get back from your trainin’?”

“Late Friday night.”

“Well then, I don’t blame you for not stopping in and seeing me yet.” Freckles carried a pot of coffee to the booth where Scooter was already sitting. “Not even the start of ski season, and this place was already a madhouse last weekend. Your old uncle here almost got himself eighty-sixed for coming in on Saturday and announcing to all my paying customers that my pancakes came from a box mix.”

“Who are you callin’ old?” Jonesy mumbled, flipping over a hot-pink coffee mug. Isaac kicked his uncle under the table. Nobody knew Freckles’ exact age, and although it would probably be safe to estimate that the woman was nearing her eighth decade, it definitely wouldn’t be prudent to mention it out loud.

“I’m putting you and Scooter on decaf.” Freckles squinted, her long false eyelashes sticking together as she frowned at Jonesy. “I’m not dealing with any extra sass outta you two this mornin’.”

Isaac chuckled, but his humorous mood was quickly cut short when the front door opened and Sammy appeared, wearing stiff jeans with creases and a brand new pair of sneakers. Hannah was right behind him, dressed in a long, bohemian-style skirt and a high-necked tank top, the arms of her denim jacket cinched around her waist.

For the second time today, he pinched the bridge of his nose. Isaac believed in a life lived with plenty of forgiveness and no regrets. But that had been before Hannah Gregson came crashing back into his universe with her cute kid. It was much easier to forgive a past grievance when he wasn’t running into the person who’d done him wrong everywhere he went in this small town.

The top of her long, blond hair was loosely clipped, allowing the bottom locks to stream down her back in soft waves. The last two times he’d seen her, she’d had it pulled up. In fact, when they’d been teenagers, the only time he’d ever seen it completely down had been the night they’d sneaked off to the boatshed behind her family’s cabin and she’d been peeling off her swimsuit with the lantern light glowing off her tanned skin...

He took a gulp of water, tilting the glass back so quickly that an ice cube slipped down his throat, causing him to sputter. Unfortunately, his cough caused everyone in the restaurant to look his way, including Sammy, whose face lit up with a crooked smile as he darted over.

“Hi, Chief Jones! Do you still have the photo of me on your phone?” The boy’s accent seemed to deepen slightly with his excitement. “My mama said she forgot to ask you for a copy.”

Forgot? After telling Isaac to get out of the picture, the woman had been so quick to rush off with her kid, she’d tossed his cell on the passenger seat of the fire engine and hadn’t even said so much as a thank-you.

He took a pen out of his front T-shirt pocket and scribbled on his paper napkin. “This is my number. Tell your mom to text me and I’ll send it to her.”

Isaac told himself that it wasn’t as if he wanted Hannah to have any more contact with him than necessary. He merely wanted her to acknowledge that he’d done something nice for her.

“I’ll tell her.” Sammy nodded. “Are you going to bring the fire engine to school today?”

“I hope not.” Disappointment flashed across the kid’s face and Isaac amended, “But only because that would mean we were responding to a fire and nobody wants one of those disrupting how much fun you’ll be having in your new class.”

Sammy didn’t seem quite convinced and Isaac sympathized with being the new kid in a different world. So he offered Sammy the same distraction Uncle Jonesy had once offered him when he’d been a child. “If you want to see the fire engine again, just come by the station anytime, big guy.”

Hannah was at the counter, balancing two white bakery boxes in her arms but keeping a guarded eye on Sammy. While he doubted she could hear him, Isaac’s stomach clenched at the realization that the woman probably wasn’t a fan of him talking to her son, let alone giving out an open invitation to hang out at the fire station. Was she seriously that worried that he might be a bad influence? Or maybe she feared that Isaac would tell the kid about their shared past.

“Sweetie,” Hannah called out to the child. “Can you come help me carry these to the car?”

The boy did an about-face and his new sneakers squeaked as he walked over to his mom. She stroked his head before giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. Isaac recalled his own first day at his elite boarding school in Connecticut. There hadn’t been any affectionate affirmations or even parting words of wisdom. His father had a “business meeting” on the golf course and his mother was closing a deal in Taiwan. But her assistant had left an itemized packing list with the maid and a map with specific drop off instructions for their driver.

Sammy gave her a toothless grin and a thumbs up before carefully taking one of the containers.

“You’re gonna need another set of hands to get these all out to your car, darlin’,” Freckles admonished.

“We can make two trips.” Hannah smiled at the waitress, but even from halfway across the restaurant, Isaac could see the pink flush stealing up her sucked-in cheeks and the steady way she avoided making eye contact with anyone.

He flashed back to the summer when they were seventeen. The baseball game she’d organized to raise money for a new bingo cage at the senior center got rained out before game time, and she’d been sitting, drenched, in the uncovered dugout. Isaac had pulled up in Jonesy’s old truck and offered to drive her home. She’d confided in him how weak it made her feel when people thought she needed help—especially when she was the one who was supposed to be helping others. She’d admitted that she’d always been the baby of her family and with her twin brothers’ recent enlistment in the Navy, she was finally getting the freedom to spread her wings and prove that she could be just as strong and as capable as them. Unfortunately, in her determination to make the world a better place, she also hadn’t had the foresight to get her driver’s license before deciding to tackle all of her charitable goals.

If he had to pinpoint the start of their relationship, it would be that day, when the sweet and beautiful girl who claimed she didn’t need anybody finally accepted his help. It had all been downhill after that.

Jonesy kicked him under the table and used his whiskered chin to nod toward Hannah.

What? he mouthed at Jonesy.

“He wants you to go help her, son!” Scooter’s booming voice drew everyone’s attention. The last thing Isaac wanted was to have the townspeople speculating about the new fire chief, the returning teacher and their disastrous past together. Not that they weren’t already doing exactly that.

“No need,” Hannah said, turning toward the exit so quickly that her hair swirled in waves down her back. “I’ll come back for the rest.”

The only way to stop the stares—and the speculation—was to get Hannah out of the restaurant as soon as possible.

Chapter Four

Isaac stood quickly and was at the counter in five strides. He picked up the remaining three bakery boxes and followed Sammy, who was trailing his mother out of the café.

The smell of sugar and cinnamon made his head dizzy as he watched her retreating rear end cross the sidewalk to where several cars—and two horses—were parked at the curb, her flowing skirt swishing with each of her hurried steps.

Isaac recalled the summer he was fifteen, when Hannah had worn a Save Our Planet T-shirt and organized a recycling drive at the park square in the center of town. He would’ve expected her to be driving some low-emission hybrid automobile and not the behemoth of a gas-guzzling jalopy she was currently unlocking.

“Is this really your car?” he asked, then cringed as she dropped one of the containers she’d been balancing in her free arm.

She groaned, then turned to face him. “No, it’s not. And what are you doing here?”

“I’m helping you carry...” he looked down at his boxes “...whatever this is.”

“They’re cinnamon rolls. It’s Nurse Dunn’s birthday today and normally the principal would bring in breakfast treats to celebrate with the other teachers. But Dr. Cromartie was taken to the hospital with appendicitis over the weekend, so I volunteered to pick them up.”

Of course she did, Isaac thought. But before he could comment on her constant need for martyrdom, she lowered her voice and added, “I meant, what are you doing in Sugar Falls?”

He took a step back at her accusatory tone. “I live here.”

“But why?”

“I’m guessing for the same reason you want to live here. Because I like it.”

“I thought you liked the East Coast better. You were certainly eager enough to go back there. Couldn’t you have gotten a job with the Yale Fire Department or something?”

“First of all, no. Yale is a college, not a city, so they don’t technically have their own fire department.”

She huffed before bending down to pick up the cinnamon rolls she’d dropped. “I was being facetious.”

Hannah took the box from Sammy, whose wide eyes were bouncing back and forth between the two adults arguing on the sidewalk. She pulled one of the fresh baked treats out and passed it to him. “Everything is fine, sweetie. Grab a napkin out of the glove box in case you get icing on your shirt and then buckle up.”

As the boy climbed inside, she turned back to Isaac. Her full pink lips parted, but before she could resume her attack, Isaac said, “Second of all, Sugar Falls needed a chief for the new fire department and I was the most qualified candidate for the position.”

“They must not have had a very big pool of applicants.” Hannah used her key to open the trunk, then snatched the top two boxes from the stack in his arms—a bit forcefully, in his opinion. However, he wasn’t going to take the bait. He stepped around her to set the rest of the cinnamon rolls in the car, but she didn’t get out of his way in time, causing his biceps to brush against the soft cotton covering her breast.

It felt as if someone had lit a match inside his chest and his skin tightened as she gasped.

“Third of all...” He schooled his features so she wouldn’t be able to see that the accidental contact had affected him as much as it had her. “I have just as much right to live here as you do.”

“But I lived here first.” She slammed the car door and put her hands on her hips, which only served to draw his gaze to her full breasts.

“You didn’t live here six months ago when I took the position. Trust me. I checked.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You checked on where I was living?”

“Apparently not well enough.” The truth was that he hadn’t asked his uncle directly because Isaac didn’t want Jonesy to think he’d never gotten over her. But he’d tried to bring it up in casual conversation with Scooter Deets, who obviously wasn’t a reliable source. All he’d told Isaac was that the last he’d heard, Hannah was living somewhere overseas doing charity work. “So it looks like you’re stuck with me now.”

“Unlike some people, I don’t live in the past, Isaac. I’m all about forgiveness and moving on.”

He gave an awkward half snort. “Yeah, ten years ago you certainly moved on from me quickly enough—with Carter Mahoney, as I recall.”

In his line of work, Isaac knew that the hottest fires came from a combination of oxygen and gas to create pinpoint blue flames. Hannah’s eyes had just flared into that exact shade as she replied, “And now I’m suddenly remembering why that was such a smart decision.”

She pivoted, marching haughtily around the car and got in. Sammy waved at him from the backseat as Hannah gunned the engine and drove off, not having the decency to look back herself and see how deeply her words had cut him.

The end of October couldn’t come soon enough for Hannah. Nor could the end of the trick-or-treat jog-a-thon she’d been way too eager to organize only a few days after her return. Hannah was still learning how to balance a full-time job with being a full-time single parent. Several months ago, when she’d told her parents that she was going through the steps to adopt Sammy, they’d shrieked with joy. They’d even devised a schedule to spend more time in Sugar Falls to help with childcare and get to know their new grandson.

But that had all been before her mom’s breast cancer recurrence.

Hannah should’ve known better than to add more activities to her already growing responsibilities. However, keeping her mind occupied left less opportunity to think about all the things she was trying to push to the back of her brain.

Unfortunately, no matter how busy Hannah had kept this week, she remained unsuccessful in her attempts to avoid Isaac around town. It probably didn’t help that she wasn’t much of a cook and tended to buy prepared meals on the run, making it easier for her son—who had an uncanny knack for spotting the firefighter in any crowd—to pepper Isaac with dozens of questions.

She’d already run into him at Duncan’s Market—literally. Cringing, she remembered everyone staring as she crashed her cart into his near the ready-made rotisserie chicken display before mumbling an apology and hiding out in the cereal aisle, not coming near the checkstand until she heard his walkie-talkie crackle to life and saw him jog out of the store. Two nights later, when she and Sammy were sick of eating corn flakes for dinner because she’d forgotten to go back and get the chicken, Isaac held the door open for her at Domino’s Deli and then proceeded to stand there for ten minutes listening to her son tell him all about his favorite sandwich toppings.

No matter where she went, she constantly ran the risk of seeing him. Or seeing someone who wanted to talk about him. Like Elaine Marconi, the president of the PTA who had gone behind Hannah’s back and invited the Sugar Falls police and fire departments to participate in today’s fund-raiser. The woman had claimed having the local heroes would help motivate and inspire the students who were grumbling about having to run.

Now Hannah was the only one grumbling. She tried not to watch Isaac and one of his crews, along with Carmen and several off-duty officers, as they raced along the elementary-school track, giving kids high fives and leading them in singing military-themed cadences. It was like she couldn’t get away from the man.

A few days ago, when Luke had pointed out that Isaac might have been crying during the video ten years ago, or at least been intoxicated, Hannah had experienced a brief softening in her heart. Extremely brief. The following morning, Sammy had run over to him at the Cowgirl Up Café as though he was a long lost family friend and Hannah had reacted the only way she knew how—by trying to shield her son from the inevitable hurt the man was sure to bring.

Then, after he’d insisted on helping her carry the cinnamon rolls to her brother’s car, he’d made that snide remark about the only person who’d supported her that awful summer. Carter Mahoney had been the one to take her aboard his father’s boat and shuttle her back to the marina after Elaine had told her what Isaac really thought of her. Carter’d been the one to sit in the cab of his truck with her when she’d cried those heavy tears of shame and betrayal, too hurt and shocked to talk about it and too embarrassed to go home and face her parents. And Carter had been the one who’d driven over to her cabin, his laptop under one arm as he gently broke the news to her about the break-up video.

“Sammy sure does love to run,” Nurse Dunn said from under the canopy where they’d set up the first-aid station. Needing a distraction from all these unwelcome memories, Hannah could either stand here and make small talk with the middle-aged school nurse or she could hide in the huddle of other parents who were passing out drinks at the refreshment table.

Hannah had inadvertently taken the reins on this event and it was her responsibility to see it through. Besides, if the kids could stand the sun and the unseasonable heat while wearing their Halloween costumes, then so could she. At least on this side of the field, Nurse Dunn seemed more interested in talking about Hannah’s son than about her ex-boyfriend. Elaine Marconi and several other moms gathered near the bleachers on the opposite side of the field wouldn’t give her the same consideration.

“He does,” Hannah agreed, pride blossoming in her chest at her child’s steady pace and happy smile as he dashed past some fourth graders. “No matter where we go, he’d rather run than walk. I can hardly keep up with him sometimes.”

“I’ve always thought about doing foster care or adopting,” the nurse commented with a hint of speculation in her voice. Hannah held her breath, waiting for all the personal questions that would surely come next. But the woman simply said, “Now that my own kids are out of the house, I might look into it.”

Hannah released the air in her lungs, relieved that Nurse Dunn seemed to understand the need for due diligence and research when starting the adoption process, instead of leaping without looking. She’d be glad to talk to anyone who had a sincere interest and wasn’t just digging for details about Sammy’s background. In fact, she was about to offer more information on the subject, but a first grader with Princess Leia buns limped toward the first-aid station and the school nurse sprang into action. Hannah was so distracted by the little girl’s arrival that she didn’t notice Isaac’s approach.

“Everything okay over here?” His voice came from behind her and Hannah fumbled the clipboard in her hand. That was the second time he’d startled her to the point of making her drop something. She clenched her teeth together as she bent down to retrieve it.

“Just a little blister,” Nurse Dunn replied. “After twenty-eight years on the job, I could bandage these things in my sleep.”

Rising, Hannah’s gaze traveled up the defined lines of Isaac’s toned, bare legs, past his blue running shorts and stopped when it got to his snug fire department tee. Her face heated at the memory of him jogging most summer mornings without a shirt, and Hannah was both thankful and slightly disappointed that they were at a school-sponsored function today and he was properly clothed. While he’d been lean and muscular back then, she could tell through the damp cotton covering his torso that he’d bulked up since high school and his body was even more impressive now.

Her mouth went dry and she tried to remind herself that good looks were just one more thing that came easy to Isaac. He’d always excelled at everything. Except getting her.

He’d actually had to put some effort into that, spending the entire summer after eleventh grade showing up wherever Hannah was, offering her rides and friendship and a connection that she hadn’t been able to form with anyone else in Sugar Falls. They’d emailed each other during their senior year of school, and the next June, when they both returned to Sugar Falls, they’d been inseparable. Right up to that night in the boatshed when she’d freely given him her virginity.

Then, the very next day, he’d gone back to being the rich guy with the ski boat, not even picking her up for the Labor Day bonfire because he was too busy teaching several girls how to wakeboard.

“I think I’m going to see if they need more water at the refreshment station,” Hannah mumbled as she commanded her feet to move, trying to get far away from Isaac. Far away from his sexy, deep voice that still sent blasts of heat all the way down to her toes.

Whoa. She really could use a cold drink right about now to cool her down. Unfortunately, as she approached the other pop-up tent near the bleachers, she overheard someone else talking about adoption, and this time it wasn’t as well-meaning as Nurse Dunn’s comment.

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