by Bella Andre
“No,” he said, “it’ll be better if I see them now.”
She’d say thank you, he’d tell her he was happy to see her and her daughter doing so well, and that would be that. No more being haunted by her eyes, by the surprising strength she’d shown him as she’d crawled on the floor of her apartment and down the stairs.
A couple of minutes later, Todd walked back in with the mother and daughter. Ignoring the pain in his head, Gabe sat up higher and forced a smile on his face.
And then, his eyes locked with Megan’s and his smile froze in place.
My God, he found himself thinking before he could shove the thought away, she’s beautiful.
The last time he’d seen her face it had been through a thick haze of dark smoke and the knowledge that one wrong move meant their lives were over. Her eyes were just as big and pretty, her limbs looked as lean and strong as they had when he’d been helping to move her along the floor, but now he could see the softness in her, the sweet curves of her breasts and hips in her T-shirt and jeans. He couldn’t stop staring at the startling green of her eyes, the silky dark hair falling across her shoulders, and the way her pretty young daughter was a carbon copy of her, the only difference their hair color, one dark, one light.
She seemed just as stunned as he and for a long moment, the two of them just stared at each other in silence until her daughter ran over to him and threw her arms around him.
“Thank you for saving me and Mommy.”
The little girl’s arms were just as strong as her mother’s. “You’re welcome, Summer. How old are you?”
“I turn seven on Saturday.”
She beamed at him and right then and there he lost a little piece of his heart to the pretty little girl with the two missing front teeth.
“Happy birthday.” He’d have to remember to have the station send her a gift.
Movement caught his attention from the corner of his eye. Megan was moving closer to him and, yet again, once he looked up at her, he couldn’t seem to pull his gaze away. Without realizing what he was doing, he scanned her left hand for a wedding band and found it bare.
“Mr. Sullivan, I can’t even begin to tell you how much what you did means to me.”
He almost told her to call him Gabe, but he knew his name would sound way too good coming from her full lips. Already his brain was wanting to spin off into a fantasy of what it would sound like to hear her say his name in distinctly different circumstances, with one less child and fire captain in the room...and a hell of a lot less clothes.
As it was, he couldn’t take his eyes off her gorgeous mouth, which was wobbling slightly. She clamped her lips tightly together as she quickly brushed her fingertips over her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said with a small laugh that held no actual laughter in it. “I promised myself I wouldn’t cry.”
“She keeps doing that,” Summer told him in a stage whisper as her mother worked to win the battle with her tears.
He whispered back, “It’s perfectly normal.”
“We needed to come say thank you.” Megan’s eyes moved over his bandages before she added, “And to make sure you were okay.”
His voice was much gruffer than usual. “I’m okay.”
“I’m so glad.”
“How are both of you? You inhaled a lot of smoke.”
She gave him a small smile that did crazy things to his guts. “We’re both fine.” She put her hand to her throat. “The doctor said I’ll only sound like a frog for a few more days.”
“You’ve got to hear her ribbit,” Summer told him. “She sounds exactly like the frog we have in my class at school. Do it for him, Mommy.”
This time Megan’s soft laugh was closer to a real one. “I’m sure he doesn’t want to hear me ribbit, Summer.”
The power of her smile, the way her eyes lit up and a sweet dimple appeared in her left cheek, rocked all the way through him. He could get drunk on her smiles—was already feeling like he’d been knocked off center by just one.
If Megan were someone he’d met at a coffee shop or bar, if she were one of his siblings’ friends—if she were anyone but someone he’d rescued from a fire—he would have not only been working on ways to get her to stay longer, but also to charm her phone number and a date out of her.
But the only reason she was looking at him with her heart in her eyes was because he’d saved her and her daughter’s lives. He knew better than to let himself fall for her and her pretty little girl.
He didn’t have to force his expression to harden at the memories of what an idiot he’d been in the past when he’d ignored professional boundaries and—stupidly—got involved with a fire victim.
“Of course he wants to hear it,” the little girl said, and then, when he remained silent, turned to him and said, “Don’t you?”
In the end, Gabe couldn’t let the kid down. “Sure,” he finally said in a tone that implied just the opposite. “Why not?”
But Megan read him loud and clear, pulling her daughter away from him and into her arms.
“We didn’t mean to bother you,” she said in a slightly defensive voice.
He didn’t tell them they hadn’t been a bother. It was better for them to think they had. That way they wouldn’t come back. That way he wouldn’t see either of them again.
At his curt nod, she said, “I appreciate you letting us come to see you today,” then took her daughter’s hand to pull her out the door.
“Do we have to go already?” the little girl protested. “I bet he has some really cool stories about all the scary things he’s done.”
In an instant, he saw in Summer the same desire for excitement and adrenaline, to live every single ounce of life, that he’d always had in himself.
Megan turned back to him, wary now. “I’m sure Mr. Sullivan needs to get some rest, baby.” She forced her lips into a false smile that made his chest feel like a hundred-pound weight had just landed on it. “Say goodbye now, honey.”
Summer frowned, with a mini-press of the lips that perfectly mirrored her mother’s. And then instead of saying the goodbye her mother had insisted on, she said, “Do you think maybe we could come by the fire station some time? You know, so you could show us around?”
Megan didn’t give him a chance to say a word, saying, “Summer,” in a clear warning that had her daughter sighing in resignation.
“Goodbye, Mr. Sullivan.”
He wanted to smile at the sweet little girl, wanted to let her know that the way he was acting didn’t have anything to do with her, and everything to do with knowing better than to let himself fall into something that would only end up hurting all of them in the end.
Instead, all he could say was, “Goodbye, Summer.”
Chapter Four
Two months later…
Megan wrapped an oversized towel around herself and stepped out of the bathroom to get changed into her clothes. The apartment they were renting until they could find the perfect new place to buy was small enough that she could see into the kitchen as she headed for the master bedroom.
“Summer, what are you working on?” she asked, trying to hold on to her patience as she took in the flour on her daughter’s cheeks and hair...flour that was, no doubt, all over the kitchen floor, too.
In the past two months, whenever Summer did something that made her mad, all Megan had to do was remember how small and fragile her daughter had been during the fire, how much she’d longed for the scrapes and mishaps Summer always managed to get into, and the little frustrations would disappear.
Only, these past few days, it seemed that Summer was more and more intent in her efforts to rile her up—and Megan was holding onto her calm by a very thin thread.
“Making muffins,” Summer hollered back, loud enough for the next apartment building over to know exactly what was going on in 1C across the street.
Although Megan had always loved looking out over the streets of San Francisco, she would never again live anywhere
but on the first floor. She’d almost stopped having nightmares about being trapped on the third floor and having to crawl down what had seemed like endless stairs, and she’d take safety over views anytime. If she missed the views, well, that was just something she’d have to suck up and deal with.
“Okay,” she said slowly as she tucked the towel in tighter beneath her arms and stepped barefoot into the kitchen. “But what brought this on at—” She stopped to look at the clock on the oven. “—six-fifteen in the morning?”
They were both early risers, but her daughter wasn’t normally quite so industrious this early, especially not on the first day of winter break.
Summer gave her a wide smile, the one she always used on people to charm them into giving her exactly what she wanted. Megan liked to think it didn’t work on her. Not too often, anyway.
“We can bring them by the fire station.” Summer widened her smile. “For the firefighters to eat for breakfast.”
The first few weeks after the fire, Summer hadn’t stopped asking questions about fire, about fire engines...and about Gabe Sullivan. Megan had answered the technical questions as best she could with the help of the Internet and some books from the library. But she’d done her best to sidestep her daughter’s inquiries about the firefighter who had saved them. Particularly the ones about going to see him again.
In the hospital, she’d seen honest emotion in his eyes when Summer had hugged him. But then he’d closed up on them, so suddenly and so completely she’d actually felt a little hurt by it.
She knew better than to take it personally. Especially when she knew his head had been hit pretty darn hard with the beam. And her emotions had been really close to the surface that day, so close they kept bubbling over. She told herself that had to be the reason she’d felt bad about his behavior.
Unfortunately, Summer wasn’t the only one who thought about him all the time. Megan thought about him every day, too. About how grateful she was for what he’d done for them. About how selfless he was to have risked his life for them. And sometimes, late at night, when she was alone in her bed, she might have even thought a couple of times about how good-looking he was and how big his muscles were.
Not that those thoughts were worth anything, though. Even if he hadn’t all but kicked them out of his hospital room, she could never be with a man like him. Not after she’d learned the risks—and the pain—of being with a man who was addicted to danger, the hardest way it was possible to learn those lessons.
Megan wanted a future with a man who would definitely be home every night. She refused to ever spend another day, another night, waiting for the phone to ring, for the knock to come at the door with the news that she’d lost a partner she’d counted on to be there.
It didn’t help when Station 5 sent Summer a birthday gift a couple of weeks after the fire. It was a little firefighter doll with yellow pigtails, a big smile, and a small pet Dalmatian that came with a fire-engine-red leash. Summer dragged that doll and her dog everywhere, sleeping with them under her arm, cuddling up on the couch with them at night. Even now, the doll and stuffed dog were standing watch on the kitchen counter.
“I’m sure they already have plenty to eat for breakfast,” she told her daughter in a gentle voice.
Summer brushed off her hands and grabbed the tray to slide the batter into the oven. “Not as good as my muffins, though.”
Megan couldn’t argue with that. Summer’s chocolate-banana-blueberry muffins were legendary. It was a combination that shouldn’t have worked, but ended up blowing your mind instead.
Lord knew, her daughter hadn’t gotten her cooking prowess from her. Nope, that was all David, who’d had a surprising knack with food. Summer was so much like her father, all the way down to the light blond hair, that sometimes Megan felt as if he were still alive.
“We’ll talk about it after I get dressed.”
“Okay, Mommy,” her daughter chirped, knowing she was on the verge of getting her way. And really, Megan thought with a small sigh, she was all out of excuses for why they couldn’t go and say hello to the firefighters at their local station.
Okay, so they’d drop the muffins off, admire the shiny engines, and then head off to the park for a couple of hours. She wouldn’t let herself get all tied up in knots over the possibility of seeing Gabe. Actually, he’d never told them to call him anything but Mr. Sullivan, even though he couldn’t be much older than she was. In any case, what were the odds that he would be on shift this morning? Or that he’d even remember them?
Megan caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror over her dresser and found there was no way to ignore the lies she was piling up one after the other this morning. Just thinking about the firefighter had her tied up in knots and there wasn’t a darn thing she could do about it.
If he was on shift, he’d remember them. Because there’d been an undeniable connection, a palpable spark, between the two of them.
She stepped away from her mirror and pulled open the closet. Whether she was lying to herself or being brutally honest, one fact remained: She had absolutely nothing to wear to a firehouse on a cold Saturday morning in December.
* * *
Summer skipped ahead of Megan, who was carrying the Tupperware container full of warm muffins. At least half a block ahead, Summer disappeared into the open doors of the fire station. Megan knew her heart shouldn’t be beating so hard. Yes, they’d been walking up a hill, but she was in good shape from the yoga DVDs she worked out with in the mornings.
And then her daughter walked outside with him and Megan’s heart pretty much stopped beating altogether. Her feet stopped, too, leaving her to stand awkwardly on the sidewalk holding the muffins with her mouth hanging halfway open.
He’d been gorgeous in the hospital bed with bandages on his head and a sheet covering most of his body. But now...
Oh, now.
There weren’t words—at least, not in her overwhelmed-with-lust brain—for a man like this. Tall, dark, and handsome barely scratched the surface. Gorgeous, beautiful…each of those adjectives were too pedestrian for his strong shoulders, his lean hips, his bright blue eyes set off against the square jaw and full, masculine mouth.
Megan had to forcefully remind herself that she shouldn’t take a running leap and jump this man. Her dormant libido might have—stupidly—taken this moment in time to spring back to life, but that didn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things. At some point when she was all alone in her big bed, she’d find a way to take care of her newly raging sex drive. But there was no way she would risk her heart or her daughter’s on a man who might not live to see tomorrow.
That thought sobered her up enough to push her past the embarrassment of her super-obvious reaction to his good looks.
Willing her feet to get moving again, she finally walked the last few yards toward him, making sure to keep her shoulders back and her chin up so that he wouldn’t think she was any more of a loser than she already felt like, drooling over him like that.
“Summer made these for you.”
She handed him the container of muffins and he smiled down at Summer. “Thank you.” He lifted the lid and inhaled, clearly surprised by how good they smelled. “These look like they’re going to be great. The rest of the guys here are going to be begging me for them.”
“You can share them and I’ll make you more!”
Megan had known this was where things would go, that if she relented and let them come to the station once, it would turn into repeat visits.
Just as she was thinking this, he turned back to her, his expression carefully blank. There were no smiles for her, only her daughter. Clearly, he wasn’t any happier to see her again than she was to see him.
Good. Maybe they could keep this visit short.
Summer tugged on his sleeve. “Thank you for the doll. She’s my favorite present I got for turning seven. Her puppy is so cute, too.”
Her solemn thank you had Gabe squatting down to be at eye level
with her. “I’m glad. Seventh birthdays are really important.”
Summer nodded. “Now can you show me the fire engine and all the buttons you push for stuff, Mr. Sullivan?”
Nope, short wasn’t going to happen, Megan thought with a barely suppressed groan. But when that smile came back for her daughter, Megan felt her insides go to mush again despite all the tall, strong walls she’d put up to protect herself against his far too powerful allure.
How long had she been searching for a man who looked at her daughter like that? Like he thought the sun rose with Summer, just as her name indicated it should? As though she were important, rather than just some bothersome kid Megan happened to have had with some other guy?
“Sure thing.” He shot a questioning glance at Megan. “If it’s okay with you, that is.”
She was about to reply when she noticed a fading scar on his forehead that ran from his left eyebrow into his hairline, and her legs weakened. His forehead had been bandaged the last time she’d seen him at the hospital and she knew that was where the beam must have hit him after he’d gotten them down the stairs. She wanted to say something, wanted to thank him again and apologize for putting him in that position, but she knew it would come out all weird and wrong.
Instead, she simply said, “Of course it’s okay with me. Summer loves big machines and finding out how they work, don’t you?”
Just like her father had. Only his machine of choice had been an airplane, rather than a fire engine.
Gabe took Summer’s outstretched hand and walked her over to the shiny historic fire engine in the back corner of the station.
Normally, Megan would have followed them, but she wasn’t sure being that close to him for a prolonged period of time would be a good idea. Not when her hormones were still in crazy overdrive.
Walking further into the fire station, she quickly found herself at the center of a group of big, strapping men. Only, for all the testosterone in the room, despite the preponderance of broad chests and narrow hips and square jaws, her hormones didn’t flutter and her libido didn’t jump to life.
