“It might be.” She wiped it away with her thumb. “Finn, I love you so much. I think I loved you since that first ridiculous pick-up line. You’re the only person I could ever be with, even though I have no idea why you stuck with me when I kept pushing you away. When I thought something had happened to you, I died inside, a hundred thousand times.”
In wonder, he took in the worry and love splashed across her face in shimmering tears. “You love me?”
“I love you so much.”
“A hundred percent?” He was really fading now, fatigue wrapping his head in a thick fog. But he had to get something straight before he went under again.
“Excuse me?” She wiped away another tear.
“A hundred percent sure. I can ask you to marry me again.”
She blinked at him as a wave of crimson flooded her face. “Finn, you have a concussion. This isn’t the right moment for this. Be practical.”
“No. You be romantic.” Sleepy-eyed, he interlaced their fingers together.
“You should sleep now. You need rest. I promise I’ll be romantic when you wake up.”
“Really, you promise?”
Bending over, she dropped a kiss on his scarred side, the one closest to her. “You’ll see. I can be romantic if I need to. Just promise to rest. I love you.”
He sank back into sleep on a cloud of bliss.
When he woke up again, the room was filled with people who weren’t Lisa. Sean and Evie, Josh, Rollo, Brianna, Merry, Will Knight…and his father.
His gaze flew right to Stu. There was something about Stu, about being sick…
Stu held up his hand in a “we’ll talk later” gesture as Sean stepped forward.
“You still with us?”
Finn did a quick internal survey of his head and body and realized he felt a lot better. Maybe even a hundred percent better. “Can’t get rid of me that easy. I’m an animal, you know.”
“Yeah, you are.” Sean reached his fist out for a bump, then gave up on that and turned it into a fierce arm grip. “You saved Molly’s life, man. Jesus. I’ll never forget that.”
God, were those tears in his boss’s eyes? Was everyone going to cry when they came in here?
Evie came next to Sean and kneeled by the bed. “Mom said you were a hero.” Her soft voice shook. “I am so grateful to you, Finn.” Her silvery eyes shone with a sheen of moisture.
Okay, now all the tears were making him nervous. “Evie, it wasn’t like that. I kind of got her into the situation to begin with. Those paparazzi, the carjacker—”
“Nope, none of that was you,” said Sean. “The paparazzi had a crash, you did the right thing by helping. How were you supposed to know a carjacker was following? Apparently he thought Lisa was in the car with you.”
Finn scowled in confusion. “He didn’t know she was back in Houston?”
Will Knight stepped forward. “Communication breakdown. Once the police got involved, Dan Block was afraid to contact his hired thug and call him off. Overall, not the brightest criminal mind on the block. So to speak.”
Merry grinned, then wiped the smile from her face as if she didn’t want to give Will the satisfaction. “He’s the same guy who ransacked your guesthouse, Finn. I snapped a partial picture on my phone before he zapped me.”
Finn’s head throbbed, not because of the concussion anymore, but because of Lisa’s absence. She’d promised not to leave, but she was nowhere to be seen. A whole hospital room full of people, none of them the one he wanted the most. “Where’s Lisa?”
“Oh, she said to tell you she’ll be right back,” Brianna sang from the back of the room. “She went to—” She ended in a squeak as Rollo clapped a hand over her mouth.
“It’s a surprise,” Rollo explained. “A concept Brianna still has trouble with now and then.” He grinned as his fiancée jabbed an elbow into his ribs.
“I’ll need to take a statement when you’re up to it,” said Will Knight. “And I’m sure it’s going to be a doozie.”
Finn nodded wearily. “No problem. So…” He looked around at all the hotshots and friends gathered around. “I love you guys. I don’t really know you, Will, I’m talking more to my crew now.”
“Gotcha.” Will laughed.
“I love you all. I’m really happy you came here. I don’t want to chase you out, but could I have a moment alone with my dad?”
In less than a minute, the room was cleared of everyone except Finn and Stu. His father came close to the bed, more hangdog than Finn had ever seen him. “You fucking scared the living shit out of me, Finn.”
Finn gave a bittersweet laugh. “How about me? I had to hear from the paparazzi that you’re sick? Damn, Stu. Why didn’t you tell me? What’s going on?”
“Eh, just some surgery coming up. Some chemo. Fuck the paparazzi, it’s none of their business.”
Finn stared at the man who’d raised him, more or less. A parade of babysitters and hot girlfriends had helped, but the center had always been held by Stu. No recovered memory was going to change that. “It’s my business, though, isn’t it?”
“You were so hot to learn about your birth parents.” Stu’s bushy black eyebrows pulled together in a frown. “The cancer news put me into a tailspin. You’re my only family left, but I’m such a lousy father. I was afraid if you found your real family, that would be it.”
“But…they’re dead. My parents.”
“Yeah, and even so they’re better fucking parents than I was. I’m sorry, Finn. I acted like a movie mogul trying to control everything, instead of a human being.” He rubbed a hand across his heart as if it pained him. “I should have told you I was sick. I should have told you what the detective found.”
“I remembered on my own.”
“Yeah?”
“But that doesn’t mean I don’t…” He hesitated. Stu didn’t use words like “love” except to refer to a great marketing campaign or a new chef at Spago. “I still love you.”
Stu’s mouth twisted. He started to say something, but it ended in a grunt.
Whatever. It didn’t matter what Stu said.
A feeling of peace settled over Finn. The kind of peace that came when all the questions didn’t matter anymore. He knew who he was inside. The rest was just noise.
“But Dad, you gotta knock off the manipulation crap. No more tabloid stunts. No more publicity bullshit.”
Stu spread his arms wide. “You got it, son. You live your own life, the way you want to. I just hope I’m part of it.”
Finn flashed him a thumbs up, because he couldn’t really form the right words.
“Well, maybe one more tabloid stunt,” Stu added. “Just one more.”
“No.” Finn raised himself more upright. “Call it off, Dad. I’m serious.”
“Can’t. It’s already on.” He gestured toward the doorway, where two people had just appeared.
The first was Lisa, whose face was lit up with the glee of a kid at Christmas. The other was the photographer from the Escalade. A bandage covered his forehead, but he was grinning too.
Stu stepped away from the hospital bed. “I can’t say no to a pretty girl, Finn. You know that.” He winked and made way for Lisa.
She floated toward him. He couldn’t drag his eyes away from her glowing face. “What are you doing?”
“Posing for the tabloids.” She set one hip on the bed and nestled against him, curling her body romantically against his. “They wanted a proposal, remember?”
His jaw dropped. “But I don’t have a ri—”
Stu cleared his throat. “Yeah you do.” He tossed something in Finn’s direction. It glittered as it caught the light. “Ellie’s,” he added. “Yours now.”
Finn caught it in his fist.
“Wait wait wait,” Lisa said in a rush, pushing Finn’s hand away. “This is my romantic gesture, proof that I don’t care about any of the Hollywood stuff, the cameras, the tabloids, none of it matters. I just want you. That’s why I invited them in and—”
; But Finn was not about to miss this chance. “Sorry, babe. I’ve been thinking about this moment for too long. Lisa Peretti, love of my life, most beautiful badass nurse of all time, would you—”
Lisa clapped a hand over his mouth. “Finn Abrams, kindest, most compassionate, most wonderful firefighter of all time, the only man I’ve ever loved, would you—”
“Marry—” he spoke through her fingers.
She adjusted her hand. “Marry me and make me—”
“The happiest man—” he blurted.
“Happiest woman—”
“On earth?”
“In the universe?”
They both burst into laughter. Finn could swear that sparks were literally dancing around them. Lisa kissed him with passionate abandon, as if the whole world could be watching and she wouldn’t mind. Which it might be, since the photographer was taking shot after shot.
Finally, she drew away. She was blushing so hard her face looked like a strawberry. “Did you get enough, do you think?” she asked the photographer.
He lowered his camera. “Sure. Didn’t hear a yes from either one of you, though.”
Lisa turned back to Finn and touched her forehead to his. In the private, intimate space between their faces, she whispered the sweetest word in the world at the same moment he whispered the same thing.
Yes.
34
In the cozy bed in the guesthouse, Lisa wrapped Finn’s body around her like a blanket. She inhaled the warm, woodsy scent of his almost-sleeping body. This—this was the best kind of luxury. To be loved by someone you loved in return—it was practically decadent. Especially when you’d spent most of the past week in bed.
The dreamy hours between bouts of lovemaking had given them a chance to catch up on everything they’d gone through while they were apart.
“As soon as I got to Houston, I wanted to come back,” she told him.
“I thought you were done with me. Done with our little ‘sex-capade.’”
“I’ll never get enough of your sex-capades.” They snuggled for a while after that. “You know, when I went back to the hospital to meet with the management, so many emotions came over me. All the stress, all the suffering I saw there. I remembered what you said about running into the crisis. I did that, yes. But I was running away from my heart. I didn’t stop running away until I found you, Finn. Until I fell head over heels for you.”
His breath caught. “Such a romantic.” Even though he was obviously teasing her, he couldn’t mask how her words moved him.
She lifted herself on one elbow. “Are you blushing?”
“What? No. Big strong firemen do not blush. If you see any red at all, it’s an inflammation of my scar.”
“Pfft. I know a blush when I see one.” She peppered his scarred side with kisses. “That’s okay, I won’t tell anyone you’re a total sap. Everyone already knows anyway.”
“Yeah, I guess they do. Tabloids don’t lie. Oy, that picture of us in the hospital. The hotshots will never let that one go. Ever.”
She laughed. Jeez, would she ever stop laughing around Finn?
“And Stu told me Annika blew a fuse over that story. She fired Gemma. Or vice versa, hardly matters. Stu’s staying out of it.”
“I’ve been thinking…” She hesitated. The idea had popped into her head in his hospital room, but she still didn’t know how he would react. “As you know, I’m a medical professional currently between jobs. What would you think about inviting your father here to Jupiter Point to recuperate from his surgery? I’ll take care of him, and you can spend time with him when you’re not on a fire.”
After a long, stunned silence, he flipped her over onto her back. “You would do that? You would really take care of my asshole father?”
“I’m not afraid of assholes as long as they’re not setting my motorhome on fire or attacking my friends.”
“You are incredible. How’d I get so fucking unbelievably lucky?”
She grinned up at him. “That’s not one of your cheesy pick-up lines, is it?”
Before he could answer, the phone rang. She snatched it up and found Merry on the line.
“That man. Gah. He owes you a favor, doesn’t he? Can you call it in for me?”
“Who does? Who could possibly make you this mad?” she asked innocently, even though she knew perfectly well who Merry was talking about. Only one man got under her friend’s skin like this.
“Don’t make me say his name.”
“If you’re talking about Will, Will doesn’t owe me any favors. He was the one who rescued Finn from the Dumpster, so I owe him.” She winked at Finn, who still cringed at any mention of that Dumpster. “I’m sure you guys can work it out. You’re both grown-ups.”
“You’re being a bad friend,” Merry hissed, sounding nothing like a grown-up.
On Finn’s side of the bed, another phone rang. Finn picked it up with one lazy move of his muscled arm. “Finn here.”
A deep voice carried into the room. “You’re a writer, Finn, right? Used to be? I need a translator. Someone who understands what’s going on in that woman’s brain.”
“What woman?” Finn winked at Lisa, who smothered a giggle. He stroked a finger up and down her upper arm. “Who are you talking about?”
“No comment.”
“I heard that ’no comment’!” Merry yelled from Lisa’s phone. “I hear those words in my nightmares!”
“Is that Merry? Let me guess, she’s pestering you guys for a story. She never stops, does she?”
Finn and Lisa looked at each other and shrugged. As one, they laid their phones side by side on the nightstand. Will and Merry kept talking, phone to phone.
“You’re going to have ’no comment’ written on your tombstone, aren’t you?” asked Merry.
“You sound a little too eager to witness that.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll take your time getting to the Promised Land, just like you do everything else.”
“Funny, I don’t usually get complaints from women about that.”
“You just haaaad to go there.”
Lisa looked around for something to muffle the phones. All she could find was the star-and-moon fabric from her motorhome, which lay on top of a pile of stuff she still had to unpack. She reached for it, the movement giving Finn the opportunity to stroke her naked side.
Shivering with pleasure, she folded the indigo fabric and tucked it around the two phones. There. Will and Merry’s sparring was now just a buzz.
She snuggled back into the warm circle of Finn’s arms. “Sounds like things are going well with those two.”
“Maybe I should lend Sparky to Will. Romantic Gestures 101—buy a turtle.”
She laughed and nibbled on his firm chin. She brushed her cheek against the rough grain of his stubble. “He doesn’t stand a chance. Merry’s the last remaining member of Team Cynic. She’ll hold the line. It’s her civic duty.”
He pulled her on top of him and stroked the curves of her ass, making her melt and squirm. “You badass cynics sure know how to make a man work for it.”
She licked his neck, savoring the intoxicating flavor that was just Finn. Only Finn. “It just takes the right person, that’s all. Someone who can see past our beastly exteriors to the sappy souls inside.”
“Did you just call yourself beastly?” He swatted her butt lightly.
“Yeah. What are you going to do about it?” She loved it when he got all commanding—and he knew it.
“I’m going to make mad, incessant love to you.” He moved her up and down on his swelling shaft. “I’m going to keep you naked in bed until you forget the meaning of the word ‘beastly.’ I’m going to make you so happy, even your smile will set off sparks. Any more questions?”
“No questions.” Hot joy swamped her as she gazed into his loving eyes. “Okay, maybe one.”
“What?”
“Should we hang up our phones first?”
He burst out laughing and rolled her under
him, bracing his strong, scarred, powerful body atop hers. Deep in a place beyond logic, she knew that days just like this—filled with heart and laughter—lay ahead as far as the eye could see.
And she gave silent thanks to the stars and their mysterious ways.
The next Jupiter Point book, Merry and Will’s story, is coming in summer 2017.
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About the Author
Jennifer Bernard is a USA Today bestselling author of contemporary romance. Her books have been called “an irresistible reading experience” full of “quick wit and sizzling love scenes.” A graduate of Harvard and former news promo producer, she left big city life in Los Angeles for true love in Alaska, where she now lives with her husband and stepdaughters. She still hasn’t adjusted to the cold, so most often she can be found cuddling with her laptop and a cup of tea. No stranger to book success, she also writes erotic novellas under a naughty secret name that she’s happy to share with the curious. You can learn more about Jennifer and her books at JenniferBernard.net.
Connect with Jennifer online:
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Also by Jennifer Bernard
Jupiter Point Series
Set the Night on Fire ~ Book 1
Burn So Bright ~ Book 2
Into the Flames ~ Book 3
Seeing Stars
(Prequel and Hope Falls Kindle World Novella)
The Bachelor Firemen of San Gabriel
The Fireman Who Loved Me
Hot for Fireman
Sex and the Single Fireman
How to Tame a Wild Fireman
Setting Off Sparks (Jupiter Point Book 4) Page 24
