Flashback
Jill Shalvis

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

About the Author

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

Copyright

USA TODAY bestselling author JILL SHALVIS is happily writing her next book from her neck of the Sierras. You can find her romances wherever books are sold, or visit her on the web at www.jillshalvis.com/blog.

Chapter 1

THE FIRE BELL RANG for the fourth time since midnight, interrupting Aidan Donnelly in the middle of a great dream in which he was having some fairly creative, acrobatic sex with a gorgeous blonde. The last thing he wanted was to be shaken awake, but apparently sex, imaginary or otherwise, wasn’t on his card for the evening.

He was on the last few hours of a double shift from hell. The loudspeaker mounted in one corner of the bunk room was going off, telling him and his crew that they would not be going home in one short hour after all, but back into the field on yet another emergency call.

Putting the blonde back where she belonged, in the file in his brain labeled Hot Erotic Fantasy, Aidan got up to the tune of a bunch of moans and groans from his crew.

So close. He’d been so close to three desperately needed days off…

Across the room Eddie kicked aside the latest issue of Time, which had an entire company of firefighters on the cover. “A lot of good being the sexiest occupation does us,” the firefighter grumbled, “when we’re too exhausted to take advantage of it.”

“Some of us don’t need beauty sleep.” This from Sam, Eddie’s partner. “Like, say, Mr. 2008 here.” He slid a look Aidan’s way, but Aidan found himself too tired to rise to the bait.

Through no fault of his own, he’d been named Santa Rey’s hottest firefighter for 2008. This dubious honor came along with another—being put on the cover of Santa Rey’s annual firefighter’s calendar. “I told you, I didn’t submit my name.”

Eddie grinned in the middle of dressing. “No, we did, Mr. 2008.”

Aidan gave him a shove, and Eddie fell back to the mattress, snorting out a laugh as he staggered upright again and grabbed his boots. “Yeah, like being that pretty is a hindrance.”

“I am not pretty.”

No one answered him in words as they pulled on their gear, but several made kissy noises as they headed toward their rigs. Still groggy, and definitely out of sorts, Aidan took the shotgun position next to Ty, his temporary partner, on loan from a neighboring firehouse, since his usual partner Zach was still off on medical leave.

Eddie and Sam grabbed their seats, as well as Cristina and Aaron, another on-loan firefighter, and they were all off into the dark night—or more accurately, the dark predawn morning—following the ambulance, which had pulled out first. The air was thick with dew, and salty from the ocean only one block over. For now the temperature was cool enough, but by midday the California August heat would be in full bloom, and they’d all be dying. Aidan got on the radio to talk to dispatch. “It’s an explosion,” he told the others grimly.

“Where?” Ty asked.

“The docks.” Which could be anywhere from the shipping area, to the houseboats filled with year-round residents. “Only one boat’s on fire, but several others are threatened by the flames, with no word on what caused the explosion.”

Behind him, Eddie swore softly, and Aidan’s thoughts echoed the sentiment. Explosions were trickier than a regular fire, and far more unpredictable.

“Are they calling for backup?” Sam asked.

They needed it. Firehouse Thirty-Four was sorely overworked and dangerously exhausted going into the high fire season. They’d had a rough month. Aidan’s partner and best friend Zach had been injured after digging into the mysterious arsons that had plagued Santa Rey. Mysterious arsons that were now linked to one of their own.

Blake Stafford.

Just the thought brought a stab of fresh pain to Aidan’s chest. Now Zach was off duty and Blake was dead, leaving them all devastated.

Cristina was especially devastated, and with good reason. She’d been Blake’s partner, and the closest to him. She’d suffered like hell over his loss, and also over the arsons he’d been accused of committing.

She blamed herself, Aidan knew, which was ridiculous. She couldn’t have stopped Blake.

As it turned out, none of them could have stopped him.

Aidan considered himself pretty damn tough and just about one-hundred-percent impenetrable, but losing Blake had been heart-wrenching. He missed him, and hated what he’d been accused of. He didn’t want to believe Blake was dead, and he sure as hell didn’t want to believe Blake guilty of arson, and the resulting death of a small boy—none of them did, but the evidence was there. He could hardly even stand thinking about it—classic denial, Aidan knew, but it was working for him. “Dispatch’s sending rigs from Stations Thirty-Three and Thirty-Five.”

No one said anything to this, but they were all thinking the same thing—it’d take those stations at least ten extra minutes to get on scene from their locations—and the sense of dread only increased as they pulled up to the docks.

Turned out that the fire wasn’t at the shipping docks, but where the smaller, privately owned boats were moored at four long docks, each with ten bays. Possibly forty boats in total, many of them occupied.

Chaos reined in the predawn. Their senior officer was usually first on scene, setting up a command center, but he was coming from another fire and was five minutes behind them. The sky was still dark, with no moon, and the visibility wasn’t helped by the thick plumes of black smoke choking the air out of their lungs. Flames leaped fifty feet into the air, coming from a boat halfway down the second of the four docks. Aidan took a quick count, and his stomach tightened with fear. There were boats on either side of the flaming vessel, and more on the opposite side of the dock.

Not good.

As they accessed their equipment and laid out lines, three police squad cars tore into the lot, followed by the command squad, all of whom leaped to work evacuating the surrounding docks. Aidan and company needed to contain the flames, but the explosion burned outrageously hot. He could feel that mind-numbing heat from a hundred feet back. With the chief now on scene, barking orders through their radios, Aidan and the others moved with their hoses, their objective to keep the flames from spreading to any of the other boats. They were halfway there when it came.

A sharp, terrified scream.

The sound raised the hair on the back of Aidan’s neck, and he dropped everything to run toward the burning boat, Ty right behind him.

The scream came again, clearly female, and Aidan sped up. No one knew better than a firefighter what it was like to be surrounded by flames, to have them lick at you, toy with you. It was sheer, horrifying terror.

They had to get to her first.

Behind them came Sam, Eddie, Cristina and Aaron, directingwaterontheflamestoclearAidanandTy’spath down the dock toward the boat. Twenty feet,then ten,and that’s when he saw her. A woman standing on the deck of the burning boat, wobbling, the flames at her back.

“Jump!” he yelled, wondering why she didn’t just make the short leap to the dock—she could have made a run for safety. “Jump—”

Another explosion rocked them all. Aidan skidded to a halt, spinning away and crouching down as debris flew up into the air to match the intensifying flames. The chief was shouting into the radio, demanding a head count. Aidan lifted his head and checked in as he took in the sights. The boat was still there. With his heart in his throat, he searched for a visual on the woman—

There. In the same spot she’d been before, still on the deck but on the floor now, holding her head. Goddammit. He got to his feet, took a few running steps, and dove onto the boat.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when he landed next to her. “It’s okay.” He dropped to his knees at her side to try to get a good look and see how badly she was injured, but the smoke had choked out any light from the docks and she was nothing but a slight shadow. A slight shadow who was hunched over and coughing uncontrollably.

“The boat,” she managed. “It k-keeps b-blowing up—”

“Can you stand?”

“Yes. I—” She let out a sound that tugged at his memory, but he pushed that aside when she nodded. She got up with his help, twisting away from him to stare up at the flames shooting up the mast and sails. “Ohmigod…”

He pulled her closer to his side, intending to jump with her to the dock and the hell off this inferno, but several things hit him at once.

The name of the boat painted across the out side of the cabin, flickering in and out of view between the flames.

Blake’s Girl.

No. It couldn’t be. Then came something of far more immediate concern—the rumbling and shuddering of the deck beneath their feet. “We have to move.”

“No. No, please,” she gasped. “You have to save the boat.”

“Us first.” He couldn’t have put together a more coherent sentence because of all that was going through his head. Blake’s Girl…

Blake’s boat. God, he’d all but forgotten that Blake had owned a boat.

Then there was the woman in his arms, facing away from him, but invoking that niggling sense of familiarity. There was something about her wild blond curls, about the sound of her voice—

The warning signals in his brain peaked at once. In just the past thirty seconds, the flames had doubled in strength and heat. The deck beneath their feet trembled and quivered with latent simmering violence.

They were going to blow sky high. Whipping toward the dock he got another nasty surprise—the flames had covered their safe exit.

On the other side of those monstrous flames stood Ty, Eddie and Sam, hoses in hand, battling the fire from their angle, which wasn’t going to help Aidan and his victim in time. Cristina was there, too, with Aaron, and even in the dark he sensed their urgency, their utter determination to keep him safe.

They’d so recently lost one of their own; there was no way they were going to let it happen again.

“Ohmigod,” the woman at his side gasped, staring, as if mesmerized, at the sight of the flames closing in on them.

She wasn’t the only one suddenly mesmerized, and for one startling heartbeat, Aidan went utterly still, as for the first time he caught a full glimpse of her.

He knew that profile.

He knew her. “Kenzie?”

At the sound of her name on his lips, uttered in a low, hoarse, surprised voice, her head whipped toward his, eyes wide. Her wavy blond hair framed a pale face streaked with dirt and some blood, but was still beautiful, hauntingly so.

She was Mackenzie Stafford, Blake’s sister. Kenzie to those who knew and loved her, Sissy Hope to the millions of viewers who watched her on the soap opera Hope’s Passion.

She was not a stranger to Aidan, but not because of her television stardom. He knew her personally.

Very personally. “Kenzie.”

“I can’t—I can’t hear you.”

People never expected fire to be noisy, but it was. The flames crackled and roared at near ear-splitting decibels as they devoured everything in their path.

Including them if they didn’t move, a knowledge that was enough to pull his head out of his ass and get with the program. Old lover or not, he still had to get her out of there alive. But she was looking at him through Blake’s eyes, and his heart and gut wrenched hard. There was maybe twenty feet of water between Blake’s Girl and the next boat, which was starting to smoke as well, and would undoubtedly catch on fire any second. It didn’t matter. They had no choice. “Kenzie, when I say so, I want you to hold your breath.”

“D—do I know you?”

He wore a helmet and all his equipment, and in the dark, not to mention the complete and utter chaos around them, there was no way she could see him clearly. Still, he had to admit it stung. “It’s me, Aidan. Hold your breath now, on my count.”

“Aidan, my God.”

“Ready?”

“The boat’s going to go, every inch of it, isn’t it?”

Yep, including the few square inches they were standing on. In fact, it was going to go much more quickly than he’d have liked. Since they couldn’t get to the dock, it was into the ocean for them, where they’d wait for rescue.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “There’s got to be another way.”

Unfortunately there wasn’t, and he quickly stripped out of his jacket and gear because the protection they offered wouldn’t be worth the seventy-five pounds of extra weight while treading water and holding up Kenzie to boot. At least she was conscious. She didn’t appear to have on any shoes, or anything particularly heavy on her person, all of which were points in her favor.“Onthree,okay?Remembertoholdyourbreath.”

“I don’t think—”

“Perfect. Go with that. One—” He nudged her in front of him, pushing her to the railing.

“Aidan—”

“Two—”

“Are you crazy?”

“Three.”

“Hell, no. I’m not going into the—”

He dropped her into the water, and she screamed all the way down.

Chapter 2

KENZIE HIT THE ICY OCEAN, and as she took in a huge mouthful of water, she realized she’d forgotten to hold her breath, a thought that was completely eradicated when Blake’s Girl exploded into the early dawn.

In the brilliant kaleidoscope, she barely registered the splash next to her, or the two strong arms that came around her, supporting her as flying pieces of burning debris hit the water all around them.

Aidan. My God, Aidan…That it was him boggled her mind. She tried to remind him that she could swim on her own, but the shock of the cold water sapped both her voice and the air in her lungs, and also hampered the working of her brain.

She’d never experienced anything like it. Never in her life had she been so hot and so frozen at the same time. The heat came from the flames, so high above them now that she was in the water, but no less terrifying. And yet, an icy cold had taken over her limbs, making movement all but impossible, weighing her down, sitting on her chest, sucking the last of the precious air from her overtaxed lungs.

Someone was screaming, and Kenzie envied their ability to draw air into their lungs because her own felt as constricted as if she had a boa slowly squeezing the life out of her.

The scream came again.

Huh?

It sounded sort of like her.

And then she realized, as if from a great distance, that it was her screaming, which meant that somehow she was breathing. Okay, that was good. So was the man holding her in the water, tucking her head against him, shielding her from the pieces falling out of the sky at his own risk. Without him, she’d have gone down like a heavy stone and she knew it.

“Shh,” he was murmuring. “I’ve got you. It’s okay, Kenzie, it’s going to be okay…”

She was hurt, but not so hurt as to stop the memories bombarding her at the sound of his voice. How could she not have instantly recognized him?

He was the first man who’d ever broken her heart.

He’d ditched his helmet and she could see his face now. He didn’t look happy to see her, and honestly, on that point, if he hadn’t been saving her sorry ass, they’d have been perfectly in sync. “Aidan.” She could see the fire reflected in his eyes. Blake’s Girl was really blazing now. “My God, we almost—”

“I know.” His short, dark hair was plastered to his head. Water ran in rivulets down his face, which was starkly pale. His long, inky-black eyelashes were spiky, and he had a cut above one eyebrow that was oozing blood. In spite of all of that, she had the most ridiculous thought: wow, he looked good all fierce and intense and wet.

Aidan Donnelly, first real boyfriend. First…everything… She could hardly believe it, certainly couldn’t processit,soshecranedherneck,staringattheboatthat looked like one big firecracker. “It just blew, and I—”

“Kenzie—”

“—I mean one minute I’m sitting there missing my brother, and the next…”

He looked into her eyes, his cool and composed. “It’s going to be okay, but I need you to—”

“And it blew. I was just sitting there, surrounded by his things, missing him, and then boom. My Choos are probably halfway to China by now. I really liked those Choos.”

“Kenzie,” he said in a tone of authoritative calm. “I need you to listen to me now. Can you do that?”

She could take a gulp of air. But listening? The jury was still out on that one. Her ears were ringing. And the water was so damn cold. In fact, she was shaking and hadn’t even realized it, shudders that wracked her entire body and rattled her teeth.

“Hold onto me, Kenzie. That’s all you have to do, okay? Just hold onto me.”

Right. Hold onto him. She’d grown up here in Santa Rey, and once upon a time she’d held onto him plenty. She’d held onto him, laughed with him, slept with him…

Actually, there’d never been much sleeping involved between them, a thought which brought an avalanche of others. Him fresh out of the firefighters’ academy and possessing a body that had made her drool, not to mention the knowledge of how to use that body to make hers go wild…

But that had been what, six years ago? Hell, she could barely think, much else handle any math at the moment, so she couldn’t be sure.

He was towing her out, away from the boat and any danger of falling debris, while shouting something to two firefighters on the other side of the burning vessel, both of whom had hoses on the fire.

She’d been in a fire before. On the set of her soap opera, Hope’s Passion, before it’d been cancelled. But that was under carefully controlled circumstances. This wasn’t a TV show with lines for her to follow. This was the real thing, with no makeup department standing by to color in pretend injuries, dammit.

She’d have loved a script right about now, with a happy ending, please.

At least she was still breathing.

Hard to beat that.

Blake’s Girl hadn’t gotten so lucky.

Neither had Blake. Oh, yeah, there was the familiar rush of pain, slicing right through the numbness from the cold water, lancing her heart—the pain that had been with her since she’d learned Blake was dead. Making it worse, adding confusion and anger to her grief was the fact that he’d been accused of being an arsonist and murderer.

God, Blake…

Another chunk of burning debris fell from the still flaming boat, and she imagined it was something of Blake’s, something she’d never see again. Or maybe it was her own suitcase, or her laptop, which wasn’t a big loss in the scheme of things, but it held the scripts she’d been writing…

At least if she died, she would no longer be a freshly unemployed soap star.

It was so damn ironic—she’d never been able to come home when Blake had been alive because she’d been too busy working. Then days after he’d died, her soap had been cancelled. Now she could drive up all she wanted, and he was gone… Her first trip home in forever and it had been to see after his things, things that were now smoldering in the water around her.

“Don’t give up on me,” Aidan said. His eyes focused ahead on where he was swimming to, some point invisible to her. It was too dark to see their color clearly but she knew them to be a light brown with flecks of green that danced when he laughed.

He wasn’t laughing now.

Nope.

He glanced at her, then resumed swimming straight and sure, moving them away from the flames, which also meant away from any warmth, while she did as he’d asked and just held on. She could do nothing but. Like old times…

Why did it have to be him, the guy who’d crushed her heart, stomped on her pride and then walked away from her without a backward glance?

Did he hurt over the loss of Blake?

Did he believe the lies?

Because that thought, and all the others that came with it, came close to defrosting her, she shoved them aside. The blessed numbness was working for her. She hadn’t come to Santa Rey in the past six years, but Blake had visited her in L.A. on the set, whenever he could, and on top of his visits, they’d been in frequent contact by e-mail, texting and phone calls, and had remained close despite their physical distance. He was the only family she’d had.

And now he was gone.

Forever gone.

“Kenzie? You still with me?” Aidan’s lean jaw was tight with tension and was scruffy, as if he hadn’t had time to shave in a day or two. Or four.

“Unfortunately.” She’d like to be anywhere but “with” him. She could feel his longer, stronger legs moving, bumping into hers, and it made her irrationally mad. She didn’t want help, not from him, but when she wriggled free to prove herself fine, she went down like a stone. Straight beneath the surface of the icy water, where she promptly did the stupid thing of opening her mouth to breathe and got a lungful of extremely cold salt water for her efforts.

Thankfully, she was immediately hauled back up again and pulled against a hard chest, one hand fisted in the back of her shirt, the other arm across the backs of her thighs in a grip that could have rivaled Superman’s.

Firefighter to victim.

Not ex-boyfriend to ex-girlfriend.

And wasn’t that just the problem? Once upon a time he really had had her, only he’d been the one to let go. He’d done it, he’d said, because of their respective careers and because he didn’t like hiding their relationship from his friend Blake, but she knew the truth. It was because he’d decided she’d been falling in love with him and he hadn’t been ready for love, so he’d shooed her away and had moved on.

She’d hated him for that for a good long time, for not givinghimselfachancetofeelwhatshe’dfelt,and,yeah, he’dbeenright—she had beenmorethanhalfwayinlove withhim.It’dtakena while,buteventuallyherangerhad drained, and she’d acknowledged that he’d been right to break it off with her before she’d gotten even more hurt… But that hadn’t eased her pain at the time.

Maybe she should consider herself lucky they were doing this reintroduction in an official capacity—him on the job, and her being just one in a blur of people he rescued. Less personal.

“Stop fighting me.” His voice cut through the shocking noise of the night: the sirens, the shouting of the other firefighters and personnel, the ever-present, horrifying crackling of the flames, the small waves smacking into each other, waves that would be cresting over her head if it wasn’t for Aidan’s holding her with what appeared to be little to no effort. “I’ve got you.”

“I don’t want you to have me.”

“Okay, roger that. But at the moment you don’t have a choice.”

“Of all the firefighters in this damn town…”

She thought she caught a flash of a grim smile. So he was no more thrilled than she was. He wasn’t even looking directly at her, his attention instead focused on the boat behind her, and the dock behind that, reminding her that not only was he saving her hide, he was simultaneously looking for other people who needed help.

“I was alone on the boat,” she told him.

“What were you doing?”

“Saying good-bye to Blake.”

Sorrow, regret, and anguish all briefly flashed in his eyes. “Kenzie—”

“He didn’t do those things you’re all accusing him of, Aidan.”

She had his attention now, all of it, and she’d forgotten the potency of having Aidan Donnelly giving her one-hundred-percent of his focus. “He didn’t.”

“Did he say something, anything to you at all, before he died?”

Died…Hearing the words from his mouth made Blake’s death all the more real, as did being back here in her hometown, and it hit her hard. Throat so tight that she couldn’t speak, she shook her head. No, Blake hadn’t said anything at all, which made her feel even worse. “It wasn’t him who set those fires. I know it.”

“Kenzie,” he said very gently, but she didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to hear anything he said, so she shook her head again and closed her eyes, which brought an unexpected and horrifying sense of vertigo, making her clutch at him. “I want out.”

“I know. They’re coming for us right now.”

That was good. Because something was definitely wrong. Her vision was getting fuzzy. Her brain was getting fuzzier. Scared and a little overwhelmed, she pressed her face into the crook of his neck, her nose to his throat, the position hauntingly familiar and at once flooding her with memories.

She’d been here before.

Okay, not here, not in the water, freezing, scared, but she’d been held by him, had pressed her face against his warm flesh and inhaled him in, absorbing the way he held her close, as if he’d never let anything happen to her.

He smelled the same, a scent she’d never quite managed to forget, and it was messing with her brain in spite of the fact that she’d just survived an explosion, a nighttime swim in the freezing ocean, and an uncomfortable reunion with the one and only guy she’d ever let break her heart.

Dammit. She blamed Blake. Blake…

“Kenzie.” Aidan gave her a little shake. “Stay with me now.”

No, thanks…

“Open your eyes,” he demanded. “Come on, Kenzie. Stay awake, stay with me.”

As opposed to giving in to the delicious lethargy slowly taking over? Nah… “Too tired.”

“I know, but you can do this. You can do anything, remember?”

She nearly smiled at the reminder of her own personal motto, but then remembered who was talking. Yeah, she’d once believed that she could do anything, with him at her side.

He’d proved her wrong.

Oh, boy. Her eyes were closing. It’d be so easy to let them, to just drift off and not feel the cold anymore, but even in her fuzziness, she knew that was bad, so with great effort, she pried her eyes open.

And her gaze landed on him. The last time she’d seen him, she’d been so young. They’d been so young. She’d just turned twenty-two, been signed by a Los Angeles agent, and had landed her first small walk-on role. He’d been two years older, fit and gorgeous, and on top of his world as a young firefighter.

Plastered against him, her hands clenched on his biceps, her legs entwined with his, her chest up against him the way it was, she could feel that he was still fit.

Very fit.

And thanks to the flames and also the spotlights from the guys on the dock keeping track of them, she also knew that he was still gorgeous. If he hadn’t cut her loose without a backward glance, she’d be happy to see him.

Very happy.

A group of firefighters had made their way through the flames to the end of the neighboring dock, and had secured it with criss-crossing lines of water. One of them leaped into the ocean, and with long, sure strokes swam toward them.

“Here,” he called out to Aidan, holding out an arm for Kenzie.

“I’ve got her,” Aidan said.

But Kenzie had had enough, of Aidan and his capable, strong arms, of his scent and especially of the memories. So she reached out for the second fire-fighter, going into his arms without looking back, arms that had never held her before, arms that didn’t know her, arms that didn’t evoke the past.

Even though she wanted to, she wouldn’t look back.

Chapter 3

BY THE TIME AIDAN HAULED himself out of the water, Ty had handed Kenzie off to the EMTs. Dustin and Brooke took her away from the flames and straight to their ambulance.

Good.

Chilled, drenched to the skin, Aidan made his way through the organized mayhem to his rig, where he stripped down and pulled on dry gear, the questions coming hard and fast in his head.

What the hell had Kenzie been doing there? Odd timing, given that in all these years, she’d not shown up in Santa Rey, not once. At least that he was aware of. Blake had never mentioned any visits, but then again, why would he? He’d had no idea that Aidan had dated his baby sister, and then walked away rather than engage his heart. They’d never told him, knowing he wouldn’t have liked it.

Nope, Kenzie hadn’t been back, not even for Blake’s memorial service, and yet suddenly here she was, on Blake’s boat, a boat that just happened to blow sky high once she’d set foot on it.

Odd coincidence.

During the time the two of them had been in the water together, the sky had lightened. Dawn had arrived. The chief had put an explosives team in place, and had a plan to contain the fire. Aidan needed to get back into the thick of it, but first he had to see Kenzie and make sure for himself that she was okay. She’d had a head laceration and multiple cuts and wounds, and that had been before he’d tossed her into the water.

He looked through the horde of people working the flames—Eddie and Sam, Aaron, Ty and Cristina, plus the guys from Thirty-Three, all on hoses and past the explosives experts surveying the still burning shell of Blake’s Girl to where the ambulance was parked.

Kenzie was seated at the back of the opened rig between Dustin and Brooke. She was dripping everywhere, her clothes revealing what he already knew, that she was petite and in possession of a set of mouth-watering curves that had gotten only more mouth-watering in the past few years. She wore layered tees, the top one pink, ribbed and long-sleeved, unbuttoned to her waist, the one beneath white with pink polka-dots, opened to just between her breasts, both soaked through and suctioned to her body enough to expose her bra, which was also pink, lace and quite sheer.

He’d been a firefighter for years and he’d rescued countless victims, many female, some of whom had been as wet as Kenzie, and never, not one single goddamn time, had he ever stopped in the middle of a job to notice their breasts.

It was his first clue that he was in trouble, deep trouble—but when it came to Kenzie, that was nothing new. He chose to ignore his observation for now, for as long as he possibly could. His gaze dropped past her shirt with shocking difficulty, to a pair of button-fly jeans low on her hips, also dangerous territory because he’d always loved her legs, especially how bendy they could get…

Don’t go there.

She shoved her hair out of her face, which still looked far too pale, even a little green, although that didn’t take away from her beauty. Once upon a time she’d been a gorgeous study of sexy, frou-frou feminine mystery to him.

Some things never changed.

As if she felt his gaze, she looked up, and from fifty feet, between which were other firefighters, equipment and general chaos, she found him.

Between them the air seemed to snap, crackle, pop.

Six years ago, the thought of a long-distance relationship had been as alien to him as a close-distance relationship, and he’d told himself he had no choice but to break things off, even though that had really just been an excuse.

He’d broken things off because she’d scared him, she’d scared him deep. And apparently, given the hard kick his heart gave his ribs, she still did.

She’d been able to get inside him, make him feel things that hadn’t been welcome, and, yeah, he’d run like a little girl.

He felt like running now.

But this time it was Kenzie who turned away. Dustin unfolded a blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders, while Brooke checked her pupils, then dabbed at the various cuts on her face.

Kenzie sat still, eyes closed now, looking starkly pale but alive.

Alive was good.

She huddled beneath the blanket, cradling a wrist, nodding to something Brooke asked her. Aidan knew that Brooke and Dustin, both close friends, would take good care of her. They took good care of everyone, which meant that Kenzie was in the very best hands.

Still in the thick of the organized chaos around him, Aidan took a second to let his gaze sweep over her. She really did seem as okay as he could hope for, and he told himself to turn away.

He was good at that. After all, he’d learned to do so at a young age from his own family, who’d shuffled him around more than a deck of cards on poker night. Yeah, he was good at walking a way. Or at least good at pretending he didn’t care when others walked away from him.

And after all, he’d done the same to her.

God, he’d been cruel to her all those years ago. Not that he’d meant to be. Going through the academy had been a life lesson for him. He could belong to a “family.” He could make long-lasting friends. He could love someone with all his heart.

But loving his fellow firefighters like the brothers they’d become was one thing.

Loving Kenzie had been another entirely.

Since she’d left, he’d seen her only on TV. As a rule, he didn’t watch soaps. He didn’t watch much TV at all, actually. If he wasn’t working, he was renovating the fixer-upper house he’d bought last year, emphasis on fixer-upper. If he wasn’t doing that, he was playing basketball, or something else that didn’t cost any money because the fixer-upper had eaten his savings.

But there’d been the occasional night where he’d sat himself in front of a game and caught a promo for Kenzie’s soap. There’d also been the few times at the station where one of the guys had flipped on the TV during her show.

Three times exactly—and yeah, he remembered each and every one. The first had been five years ago, and she’d been wearing the teeniest, tiniest, blackest, stringiest bikini in the history of teeny-tiny black string bikinis, her hair piled haphazardly on top of her head with a few wild curls escaping, looking outrageously sexy as she’d seduced her on-screen lover. It’d taken him a few attempts to get the channel changed, and even then it hadn’t mattered. That bikini had stuck with him for a good long while.

The second time had been a few Christmases back. She’d been wearing a siren-red, slinky evening dress designed to drive men absolutely wild. She’d been standing beneath some mistletoe, looking up at some “stud of the month.” Aidan hadn’t been any quicker with the remote that time, and had watched the entire, agonizing kiss.

The third time had been for the daytime Emmys. She’d accepted her award, thanking Blake for always believing in her, and then had thanked some guy named Chad.

Chad.

What kind of a name was Chad?

And where was Chad now, huh? Certainly not hauling her off a burning boat and saving her cute little ass. Guys named Chad probably only swam when playing water polo.

In the ambulance, Dustin said something to Kenzie, and she opened her eyes, flashing a very brief smile, but it was enough.

She was okay.

Aidan forced himself to move, to get back to the job at hand, and it was a big one. The explosions had caught the boats on either side of Blake’s Girl, escalating the danger and damages. They had the dock evacuated, and as the sun streaked the sky, they were working past containment, working to get the flames one-hundred-percent out.

With one last look at Kenzie, Aidan entered the fray.

IT TOOK HOURS.

Aidan and his crew piled into their rigs just as the lunch crowd began to clutter the streets of Santa Rey. If he closed his eyes, he could still feel the imprint of Kenzie in his arms. He’d held onto her for what, three minutes tops? And yet she’d filled his head and his senses, and for those one-hundred-and-eighty seconds, time had slipped away, making him feel like that twenty-four-year-old punk he’d once been.

He’d been with Kenzie for one glorious summer, and she’d wanted to stay with him, which should have been flattering. She’d wanted to wear his ring and have a house and a white picket fence.

And his children.

But it hadn’t been flatteringat all.It’d been terrifying.

So he’d acted like a stupid, shortsighted guy. There was no prettying that up, or changing the memory. Fact was fact. He’d gotten a great job, and he’d had the world at his feet, including, he’d discovered, lots of women who found his chosen profession incredibly sexy.

He’d not been mature enough to realize what he already had; he’d been a first-class asshole. He’d sent Kenzie away, pretended not to look back and had filled his life with firefighting, women, basketball, wood-working, more women…

A hand clasped his shoulder. “Hey, Mr. 2008. Home sweet home.”

“Shutup.”They’d pulled into the station. He hopped out of the rig and went straight to Dustin, who was cleaning out the ambulance.“ The victim? How is she?”

Cristina poked her head out from the station kitchen. “Hey, guys, there’s food—” At the sight of Dustin, who she’d gone out with several times before unceremoniously discarding him without explanation, she broke off. “Oh. You’re here.”

Dustin looked at her drily. “What, is the food only for the staff that you haven’t slept with and dumped?”

Aidan winced at the awkward silence, and if he wasn’t in such a desperate hurry to hear about Kenzie, he might have refereed for the two of them, because if anyone needed refereeing, it was these two. “The vic,” he said again to Dustin.

“Sorry,” Dustin said, turning back to him. “She’s not bad, thanks to your quick thinking. A few second-degree burns, possible broken wrist, some lacerations.”

“Her head trauma—”

“No concussion.”

“Stitches?” he demanded, causing Dustin to take a quick glance at Cristina, who raised an eyebrow.

Aidan knew he was bad off when the two of them could share a worried look over him.

“No stitches,” Dustin said. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Aidan took his first deep breath in hours, which prompted another long look between Dustin and Cristina.

“You sure?” Cristina asked.

Jesus. “Yes.” Leaving them alone to work through their issues, he headed inside the station. After he’d showered, cleaned up and clocked out, he got into his truck and debated with himself.

Home and oblivion were attractive choices.

Or he could go to the hospital, see Kenzie and get a question or two answered.

Not quite as attractive, because nothing about sitting with Kenzie and looking into her soulful eyes was going to be simple. Nope, that was a guaranteed trip to Heartbreak City.

Home, then, where he wouldn’t have to do anything but fall facedown into his bed. Yeah, sounded good. He put his truck in gear.

And drove to the hospital.

KENZIE OPENED HER EYES and stared at a white ceiling. She was on a cot in the emergency room, her cuts and burns all cleaned and bandaged, her wrist wrapped, her head stitched back on—okay, so it’d only needed butterfly bandages. Now she was being “observed,” although for what, she had no idea.

At least she was warm again, or getting there. She had three blankets piled on top of her, which helped, and a hospital gown, which didn’t.

She’d just seen the fire investigator, Mr. Tommy Ramirez.Tommywasshort,dark,andquitetothepoint. The point being that he’d found it extremely odd that she’d been on Blake’s boat at the time of its explosion.

She did, too, considering she’d only gotten to town that night. Closing her eyes, she frowned. She also found it odd that he was wasting his time questioning her instead of investigating the real perpetrator of the arsons, because her brother was innocent. No way had Blake set all those awful fires they were trying to pin on him. Blake, sweet, quiet, loving Blake, the brother who’d been there for her when their parents had died fifteen years ago, when they’d gone through foster care, when she’d wanted to go off to Hollywood. He’d never have hurt a fly much less purposely hurt another human being. And endanger a child?

Never.

God, she hated hospitals. They smelled like fear and pain and helplessness, and all of them combined reminded her of her own uncertain childhood. She wished she was back on the L.A. set of Hope’sPassion, acting the part of the victim instead of really being one. Comfort food would help. Maybe a box of donuts—

From the other side of her cubicle curtain came a rustling, and then the hair at the back of her neck suddenly stood up, as if she was being watched. Opening her eyes, she blinked the room into focus. Everything was white and…blurry. But not so much so that she missed the back of a guy’s head as he ran off and out of sight. “Hey!”

He hadn’t been wearing scrubs but a red T-shirt, so he couldn’t have been hospital staff. Who’d come to see her and then leave without a word? She struggled to think but she was so tired, and a little woozy still, and when she let her eyes drift shut, she ended up dozing off…

“NOT THE SAME TYPEof point of origin as the other fires.”

Kenzie opened her eyes and turned her head, taking in the curtain, now pulled all the way closed around her cot. She was a woman who liked change, who in fact thrived on it, but she had to say, she didn’t like this change. Not at all.

How much time had passed?

“So you’re saying what, Tommy, that the chief has you on a gag order?”

Oh, boy. She didn’t need to peek around the curtain to know that voice. That voice had once been the stuff of her daydreams, of her greatest fantasies. That voice had used to melt her bones away and rev her engines.

Aidan.

“I’m not saying anything,” Tommy said. “Except what I told Zach weeks ago. I’m on this. It’s a kid glove case. So you need to back off.”

“I want to see Kenzie when she wakes up.”

He’d been the one who’d looked in on her? She didn’t know how she felt about that. Had he seen her sleeping? Had she been snoring?

Why hadn’t he come back when she called out?

“Tell me this much at least,” Aidan said, presumably still to Tommy. “Did either you or the chief even know Blake had a boat?”

“No, but I was waiting on a full investigative report from the county, and it would have shown up on there.”

“And then you would’ve what, seized the property as evidence?”

“Yes, of course. To search it, just like we’ve done with his house. All the current evidence regarding the case points to Blake being in on the arson.”

In on the arson. Kenzie absorbed the odd choice of words. Did he mean that he thought there could be more than one arsonist?

“So who beat you to the boat, Tommy? Who wanted to make sure there was no chance of extracting any evidence from it?”

The answer actually gave Kenzie hope—because it meant that someone else could possibly be proven to be responsible for the arsons, maybe even someone who’d framed Blake.

“There’s been at least seven highly destructive fires,” Tommy said. “Adding up to millions of dollars in damages. The chief’s ass is on the line, and so is mine. If Blake was still alive, he’d be behind bars. That he’s not doesn’t change anything. The investigation is ongoing.”

“But it’s possible he was working with someone,” came Aidan’s voice. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“No comment.”

“Do you know who?”

“No comment.”

“You know something’s off, Tommy, or you wouldn’t be here.”

“Yes,” the investigator agreed tightly. “Something is off, and…”

Their voices lowered to a whisper. She leaned toward the curtain, but they were talking so quietly now she couldn’t hear anything but…her name. Definitely, she’d heard her name.

Why were they talking about her?

She scooted even closer to the edge of the cot and cocked an ear, but still couldn’t hear anything. Dammit! Blake couldn’t have done any of those things they’d accused him of. She knew it, and she was going to prove it herself if necessary, starting with eavesdropping on this conversation. Tommy said something Kenzie couldn’t quite catch, so she leaned even further, and—

Fell off the cot to the floor. “Ouch.”

At the commotion, the curtain whipped open. She tried to push herself upright but with one wrist useless and the other pinned beneath her, she was pretty much a beached fish. A nearly naked beached fish, with her butt facing a crowd of three: Tommy, the nurse and, oh, perfect—Aidan. She could see the tabloids now: Ex-Soap Star Mackenzie Caught Panty-less. “Ouch,” she said again and rolled to her back, gasping when the cold linoleum hit her bare backside. She sighed just as someone dropped to his knees at her side, and then Aidan’s face swam into her vision.

“Are you okay?” he demanded.

Sure. Sure, she was okay. If she didn’t think about the fact that she’d just mooned him.

“Here.” After helping him get her back on the cot, the nurse fussed a moment, checking all of Kenzie’s various injuries. Luckily, Tommy had backed out of the room, vanishing, for now at least.

“What the hell were you doing?” Aidan demanded when the nurse left them alone, too.

“Oh, a little of this, a little of that—” Realizing her gown was twisted very high up on her thighs—which, of course, was nothing to what he’d just seen—she grabbed her blanket and tried to cover herself up. A little like closing the barn door after the horse had escaped, she knew, but she was mortified. Except the movement made her want to throw up, and she reached up, holding her head tightly.

“Here.” He took over the task of covering her, quickly extricating his hands when he was done, not quite meeting her gaze as he sat at her side.

Awkward moment…“So,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking in on you.”

Yep. And he’d gotten to look in on far more than he’d probably intended.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Depends on your definition of all right.”

At that, his eyes cut to hers and he sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face, his fingers rasping over the growth there. He looked and sounded exhausted. “I’m sorry, Kenzie.”

“For what? That I just mooned you, or that I’m here at all?”

Aidan got to his feet, pulling the curtain shut again to give them privacy, privacy that she wasn’t sure she wanted.

He’d changed his clothes. He wore a pair of jeans now, loose on his long legs, low on his hips, with a long-sleeved shirt unbuttoned over a gray T-shirt that seemed to emphasize his broad shoulders and tough, athletic build. “Your shirt isn’t red,” she said slowly.

“What?”

“Before, somebody in a red shirt was looking at me.”

“When?”

“I don’t know.” She rubbed her temples. “I’m out of it.”

“It was a tough night.”

“Yeah.” But he didn’t look like he’d just worked his ass off and managed to save her life to boot; he looked casual, relaxed.

Cool as a cucumber.

And so hauntingly familiar, not to mention gorgeous, that she couldn’t keep her eyes on him. How unfair was it that he’d gotten even better-looking with age? “Thanks for stopping by, Aidan, but you can see I’m fine. You can go.”

He looked doubtful.

“Seriously. I’m really okay.”

She almost had him, she could tell, but then she ruined it by shivering.

Without a word, he grabbed another blanket and settled it over her. She appreciated his sense of duty, but what she would appreciate even more would be his vanishing.

Or her.

Yeah, that might bebetter. If she could just vanish on the spot. Poof. “Okay, now I’m good, thanks. Really.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I mean you can’t even look at me, so—”

Lifting his head, he met her eyes, his hot enough to singe her skin.

“Oh,” she breathed, feeling her heart kick, hard.

“I can’t look at you?” he repeated in low disbelief. “Are you kidding me? Kenzie, I can’t do anything but look at you.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.