by A. J. Pine
“Hi,” she said, barely holding it together. “All right if I ride along?”
Chapter Eleven
Carter looked at the paramedic who was closing the door, a younger guy from his team named Ty. “You think you could give us some privacy?” he asked.
The other man hesitated. “With all due respect, Lieutenant—and that’s a mighty fine thing you did talking O’Brien through that situation—you know I can’t leave you alone back here.” He had to give it to the kid for following procedure. He wondered, though, if Ty’s name was on that petition.
The ambulance lurched forward, and Ivy fell into the seat meant for the paramedic.
“Guess that means you’re staying,” Carter told her.
“I can sit here,” Ty said, taking a spot on the bench to Carter’s right. “And the best I can do about privacy is this.” He pulled a pair of wireless earbuds out of his pocket and stuck them in his ears. “Just tap my shoulder if you need something!” he said, already too loud over whatever music he was playing, and Carter laughed.
“Looks like it’s just you and me,” he said. “Which means that now I can ask you what the hell you were doing so close to the fire. Dammit, Ivy. Don’t you know how dangerous that was?”
Her eyes widened. “Me? You’re mad at me when I came here to show you that I support you no matter what? To tell you that I love you and that you’re not alone in this?”
She threw her hands in the air, but with such limited space, she had to keep her arms close to her body. The whole gesture made her look like an exasperated T. rex, and Carter had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.
“Are you—laughing?” she said. “I just heard you over the chief’s radio say that you were trapped under a burning ceiling beam and that your arm was broken, and you’re laughing?”
Her voice trembled, and a tear slid quickly down her cheek.
He wasn’t laughing anymore.
“Jesus, Ivy,” he said. “You heard all that? How long were you out there?”
She sucked in a steadying breath and blew it out slowly.
“Long enough to know that you are really good at your job. Long enough to know that even in the worst situation, you were still in control and knew what to do.” She shook her head and pressed her lips together. “I will always be scared when you have to leave that firehouse with sirens blaring. But I also know that you’re the best shot your team has at coming home safe whenever you do.”
He cupped her cheek in his palm. IV or not, he didn’t care. He needed to touch her, and he needed her to know the truth—that as good as he was at his job, he was scared, too, scared that he couldn’t guarantee he’d always walk away from a situation like today.
“I can’t promise you that’ll be the case 100 percent of the time. If we hadn’t gone back in for that damn dog, no one on my command would have left in an ambulance. I mean, hell, if Shane wasn’t there—if he didn’t listen to me?” He dropped his hand and let out a bitter laugh. “You were right,” he told her. “The whole month I’ve been here I’ve been so hell-bent on proving myself. What if that clouded my judgment? What if—”
“No what ifs,” Ivy interrupted. “I heard everything. You listened to the chief’s orders. You’re alive. Wyatt’s alive. And Shane saved you both. I’ve spent the past four weeks promising myself I wouldn’t let you get too close because of what happened to Charlie. Because of What if? I never should have told you not to go tonight. And I never will again.”
His brows furrowed. “You’ll never tell me not to go again or you’ll never not tell me not to go. Either the pain meds are kicking in or there are too many negatives in what you said that I’m not sure if you meant what I think you meant.”
This time she was the one to laugh, and the effect of the pain meds paled in comparison to her smile. He could live with being unsure about the future as long as it meant she was in it.
“Just to clarify,” he said, “are you saying that if I stay in town, you’re not going to turn the other way if you pass me on the street?”
She let out something between a laugh and sob. “If you weren’t all busted up, I’d punch you in the shoulder or something.”
“Well then, I guess I’m safe from any further physical distress,” he said. “But are you gonna break my heart, Ivy Serrano?”
She shook her head, then rested it on his shoulder. “Nah. I love you too much to do that.” She tilted her head up, and her brown eyes shimmered in the normally unpleasant fluorescent light.
“That’s a relief,” he said. “Because I don’t think I could walk by you without wanting to do this.” His lips swept over hers in a kiss that felt like the start of something new. He couldn’t wrap her in his arms, and maybe the bumps in the road made the whole gesture a little clumsy, but she was here. And she was staying. And petition or not, dammit, so was he.
Carter waited outside the chief’s office, anxious more about being late for Ivy’s fashion show than he was about what would be said behind the office doors. If he was being let go, he was being let go. He was damned good at his job, and he didn’t need anyone’s approval anymore to know that was true.
Okay, fine, so he needed the chief’s approval to keep his job but not to know that he did everything he could for this company in the month he was here.
The door swung open, and Chief Burnett popped his head out.
“Come on in, Lieutenant. Sorry to keep you waiting.”
Carter stood and brushed nonexistent dust from his uniform pants. His right hand had cramped, so he flexed it, still getting used to the air cast.
He walked inside, expecting to find the chief alone waiting for him, but instead he saw Shane O’Brien standing in front of the chief’s desk.
The chief cleared his throat. “Lieutenant Bowen, I hope you don’t mind, but I thought it best for Firefighter O’Brien to speak first.”
Carter nodded. “O’Brien,” he said. “Heard your brother is being discharged today.”
“Yes sir, Lieutenant. It was a pretty bad concussion, but thanks to you, he’s going to be fine.”
Carter’s brows drew together. The formality from Shane confused him. Not that he’d expected the guy to mouth off, but this was a complete one-eighty from what Carter had seen from him.
“He’s going to be fine, O’Brien, because of you,” Carter said. “Neither of us would be here right now if you hadn’t gotten us out of that house before the roof caved in.”
Shane’s jaw tightened. “With all due respect, Lieutenant, I never wanted to be here. And I made sure everyone knew it. And then I made your life a living hell because I knew I wasn’t good enough, and it was your job to remind me of that.” He squared his shoulders. “The signatures on the petition were forged. Every one of them but mine. I am not proud of my behavior and need some time to regroup.”
Carter opened his mouth to say something, but Shane cut him off.
“I need to figure things out without everything that’s been hanging over my head since I was a kid. I’m leaving town, sir. And the company. Effective immediately.”
Shane held out his hand to shake but then realized that was Carter’s broken arm and dropped it back to his side.
“O’Brien,” Carter said. “You don’t have to do this.”
“It’s already done,” the chief said. “I tried to talk him out of it, but I think his mind was made up the second he rode away from the Davis fire with his brother in an ambulance.”
Shane nodded once, his eyes dark and expression stoic.
“You’re a good firefighter, O’Brien,” Carter added. “I’d have been proud to keep you on my team.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” he said. He nodded toward the chief. “You too, Chief.”
The chief clapped Shane on the shoulder. “You always have a place here if you ever decide to come back.”
Shane pressed his lips together but didn’t say anything else. Then he strode through the door, closing it behind him.
Carter blew out a long breath. “You think he’s going to get into trouble again?”
The chief shook his head. “If you’d have asked me that a month ago, I’d have said yes. But something changed in him since you’ve been around. And the way you handled things in the Davis fire? We’re damn lucky to have you, Lieutenant.”
He was staying in Meadow Valley. This was—home.
“Thank you, sir. I feel damn lucky to be here.”
After a long moment, Carter turned to head for the door.
“One more thing, Lieutenant,” the chief said, stopping him in his tracks. “Your family was notified of your injury, and your father has called your aunt four times in the past two days to check on you. I thought you should know.”
Carter swallowed hard but didn’t turn back around. “Appreciate the information,” he said. “But he knows my number.”
“Give him time,” the chief said. “Father-son relationships can be a tricky thing.”
Carter thought about Shane, who was leaving town to deal with his own tricky thing, and the weight on his shoulders lifted, if only a fraction of an inch.
“Yes, sir. I suppose they are.”
Then he was out the door and down the steps two at a time. When he pushed through the station’s front door, Ivy was there on the sidewalk, right where he’d left her on his way in. The sky was overcast, but she was a vision in her bright yellow sundress, brown waves of hair falling over her shoulders.
He only needed one arm to lift her up and press his lips to hers.
“I’m home, darlin’,” he said.
“Good,” she said through laughter and kisses. “Because I wasn’t letting you go without a fight. Now come on. I need to show you something.”
She led him down the street to her shop. She bounced on her toes as they slowed in front of the window where a single mannequin stood displaying a dress that could only be described as a field of sunflowers.
“You made that?” he said. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen, Ivy. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say those were live flowers.”
She smiled the biggest, most beautiful smile he’d seen since the fire.
“I made them,” she said, and he could hear how proud she was. “It’s my version of my and Charlie’s garden. I don’t think I’d have ever finished it if I hadn’t met you, which is why I wanted you to be the first to see it.”
She beamed—a ray of sunshine on an otherwise cloudy day.
He stepped closer and wrapped his arm around her waist. “Are you calling me your muse?” he teased, and she laughed.
“I’m calling you my everything, if that’s okay,” she said, then kissed him.
He smiled against her. “That’s about the okayest thing I’ve ever been called, darlin’. So yeah, I think I’m good with that. As long as you’re good with me spending the rest of my days making good on that title.”
She kissed him again, and he took that as a yes.
* * *
Ivy and Carter tied Ace and Barbara Ann to the fence. She stared at the beautiful, stubborn man she loved and shook her head.
“What would the doctor say if he knew you were on a horse three days after breaking your arm?” she asked. She’d tried to stop him, but he’d threatened to ride off without her if she didn’t join him.
He opened and closed his right hand. “Arm’s broken,” he said. “Thanks to Shane O’Brien, the hand’s just fine. Besides, who’s snitching on me to the doctor?”
She removed the pack from Barbara Ann’s saddle and tossed it on the ground. They’d get to that shortly. Then she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him in the place where they’d kissed for the first time. When they finally parted, he spun her so her back was against his torso, his hands resting on her hips.
From the top of the hill above town, Ivy could see the ruins of Mrs. Davis’s home. She could also see the inn where Pearl would give her—and her animals—a place to stay for as long as it took for her to rebuild. She could see the bell above the firehouse, the one that would forever remind her of the day she didn’t lose the man who held her in his arms right now.
“Can you see that?” he whispered in her ear. “I don’t mean the town. I mean what’s right in front of you.”
Her brows furrowed, and she shifted her gaze from the tapestry of Meadow Valley to a shock of color just a little way down the hill. A sunflower.
She spun to face him. “I don’t understand. How did it—I mean, those don’t sprout up in a matter of days.”
He laughed. “I talked to Sam Callahan, and we thought it might be fun to start a community garden up here between locals and ranch guests. It’s public property, so there are permits involved, but I’m sure you can point me in the right direction of who to talk to.”
“You want to build me a garden?” she asked, her eyes wide.
“I want to build you everything,” he said. “But if the garden’s too painful—if the memories are too much…”
She shook her head.
“It is painful,” she admitted. “But it’s also wonderful and thoughtful.” She pressed her palms to his chest. “I don’t want to forget the painful stuff. And I don’t want to wrap myself in a bubble of fire extinguishers and interconnected smoke detectors and—and loneliness to protect myself from getting hurt again. I want to start something new—with this garden and with you. I will always be scared, but I don’t have to be alone. We’re not alone.”
“Although fire safety is important,” he teased. “So don’t abandon your extinguishers just to make a statement.”
She laughed.
“You know,” he said, looking past her and down at the town, “if you need to when things get tough, we can always come here to forget the rest of the world for a little while, pretend it doesn’t exist.”
She shook her head. “I want to experience it all, the good and the bad. With you.”
She gave him a soft kiss and ran her hands through his hair, smiling against him. “Starting with a hilltop haircut,” she said. “Are you ready, Lieutenant? Brought all my tools.”
He laughed and stepped away. “At the risk of you miscalculating and lopping off my ear, I need to ask you one quick thing before I potentially lose my hearing.”
Ivy crossed her arms. “Cut off your ear? Please, Lieutenant. And here I thought you trusted—”
He dropped down to one knee, and Ivy lost the ability to form words.
“I know there’s supposed to be a ring and everything, but I’m kind of doing this out of order. It’s as simple as the text you sent me the night of the fire. Everything’s been so crazy the past few days I didn’t even see it until later the next day. I’m here, Ivy. If you’ll let me, I will always be here for you. I love you. Say you’ll marry me, plant gardens with me, and build a life with me, and then I’ll let you cut my hair.”
She wasn’t sure if she was laughing or crying because the tears were flowing, but she was smiling from ear to ear.
She clasped her hands around his neck and kissed him and kissed him and kissed him some more.
“Yes,” she said against him, and she felt his smile mirror hers. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”
Acknowledgments
Writing the first draft of a new book is my happy place, and this book was no exception. But making the book all sparkly and pretty—that’s the tough stuff, and I wouldn’t be able to do it without my wonderful editor, Madeleine Colavita. Thank you for always knowing how to point me in the right direction, for giving me plenty of LOLs and smiley faces in your margin notes, and for wanting to try PB&J with brie. I think we should do this together!
Thank you to the whole Forever team for loving my small-town California ranchers as much as I do. I’m thrilled to keep working with each and every one of you: Amy, Leah, Gabi, and Estelle—who thankfully reminded me that this series needs an animal with personality to rival Lucy the psychic chicken. The addition of Butch Catsidy is thanks to you!
To my fabulous agent, Emily, you
r guidance, support, and brainstorming phone calls are everything.
Thank you Jen, Chanel, Lia, Megan, and Natalie for cheering me on, inspiring me with your words, and for being the best besties.
To all the readers—thank you for reading, reviewing, and sharing the love of romance.
Dad, thanks for buying all my books but not reading. LOL. Mom, thanks for buying, reading, and sharing with all your friends. And to S and C, thanks for thinking it’s cool that your mom is a writer but understanding you’re not allowed to read for a few more years. I love you infinity.
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About the Author
A librarian for teens by day and a romance writer by night, A.J. Pine can’t seem to escape the world of fiction, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. When she finds that twenty-fifth hour in the day, she might indulge in a tiny bit of TV to nourish her undying love of vampires, superheroes, and a certain high-functioning sociopathic detective. She hails from the far-off galaxy of the Chicago suburbs.
You can learn more at:
AJPine.com
Twitter @AJ_Pine
Facebook.com/AJPineAuthor
Look for more A.J. Pine books!
Crossroads Ranch series—available now!
And other cowboy romances you may love!
She came for his ranch, but she just might leave with his heart.
Delaney Harper thought she’d seen the last of Meadow Valley after her deadbeat husband left her brokenhearted and, well, just flat broke. But news that her ex sold their land means she’s heading back to reclaim her share of the property and the dreams she was forced to put on hold. Only one thing stands in her way now: a smoking hot cowboy.
