Can a chance reunion spark a Yuletide proposal?
Anything can happen in Sugar Falls!
Home for the holidays with her adopted son from Ghana, Hannah Gregson runs straight into her former flame—fire chief Isaac Jones. Though the pair are determined to keep their distance, the local matchmakers throw them together at every holiday event, and Hannah’s son worships the brave ex-soldier. If Isaac isn’t careful, he just may go from hero to family man by Christmas!
He stood close. So close.
She needed to move. But she was rooted in place, holding her breath, wondering if he would touch her. Was she a hypocrite for wanting him to?
She licked her lips to keep from appearing too nervous. Or too eager?
His eyes dipped toward her mouth. “I’m waiting.”
“For what?” For her?
“Waiting to hear you tell me what I did wrong to make you sneak out last night.”
Hannah squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to envision everything he’d done right that night. Her whisper came out on a soft breath. “Nothing. My son had a bad dream. I had to get him.”
“I would’ve gone with you. Why didn’t you wake me?”
“I don’t want him taking this hero-worship thing too far.”
“But I make such a good hero. After all, I rescued you that night, didn’t I?” He pulled her close and traced her lip.
And that was when she knew she was in trouble. Because it wasn’t just her son’s heart she needed to protect from Isaac Jones.
* * *
AMERICAN HEROES:
They’re coming home—and finding love!
Dear Reader,
The Firefighter’s Christmas Reunion is extra special to me because it involves a second chance at love. My husband and I first met in our early twenties, but the timing wasn’t right and Mr. Jeffries will tell anyone who’ll listen that I broke his heart. Then, a few years later, I was in my last semester of law school and began visualizing my future. My thoughts kept coming back to that nice guy I’d once dated and, with a little encouragement from my friends, I called 4-1-1 (like we did before Google) and found his mom’s home number.
Mr. Jeffries will also tell anyone who’ll listen that I pursued him the second time around. But really, all it took was one message (and maybe a warning from his mom about guarding his heart) and he was calling me back less than two hours later. Sometimes things don’t work out but every once in a while, we’re lucky enough to get another shot.
After being gone for two years, Hannah Gregson returns to town to find her ex-boyfriend has moved back and is now the chief of the Sugar Falls Fire Department. Isaac Jones remembers their breakup a little differently, yet he wants to think he’s moved on from that summer after high school. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to put their pasts behind them when they’re constantly faced with so many memories...
For more information on my other Harlequin Special Edition books, visit my website at christyjeffries.com, or chat with me on Twitter, @christyjeffries. You can also find me on Facebook and Instagram. I’d love to hear from you.
Happy Holidays,
Christy Jeffries
The Firefighter’s Christmas Reunion
Christy Jeffries
Christy Jeffries graduated from the University of California, Irvine, with a degree in criminology, and received her juris doctor from California Western School of Law. But drafting court documents and working in law enforcement was merely an apprenticeship for her current career in the dynamic field of mommyhood and romance writing. She lives in Southern California with her patient husband, two energetic sons and one sassy grandmother. Follow her online at christyjeffries.com.
Books by Christy Jeffries
Harlequin Special Edition
American Heroes
A Proposal for the Officer
Sugar Falls, Idaho
A Family Under the Stars
The Makeover Prescription
The Matchmaking Twins
From Dare to Due Date
Waking Up Wed
A Marine for His Mom
Montana Mavericks
The Maverick’s Bridal Bargain
Montana Mavericks: The Lonelyhearts Ranch
The Maverick’s Christmas to Remember
Visit the Author Profile page at www.Harlequin.com.
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To Francie Freetly Huttner—
my favorite mother-in-law, an adoring grammie
and the life of every party. Becoming your daughter has been a wonderful blessing and I hope that
I always make you proud. Also, thank you for not deleting my voice mail when I called your house sixteen years ago looking for your son...
Contents
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
Excerpt from A Daddy by Christmas by Teri Wilson
Chapter One
Chief Isaac Jones commanded the stainless steel griddle in the kitchen of the Grange Hall the same way he did the Sugar Falls Fire Station—with a steady hand and a slight wonder that he’d ended up in this position in the first place.
Flipping a row of pancakes, he caught the flash of a blue shirt and gold neckerchief out of the corner of his eye. “Hey, partner,” Isaac said to one of the young Cub Scouts balancing three loaded paper plates between two small hands. “Can you find Mister Jonesy out there and tell him we’re gonna need more batter?”
“We’re almost out of syrup, too,” the chief of police, who also happened to be the pack leader for Troop 1307, said from the pass-through window separating the kitchen from the rows of tables and chairs set up in the main room. “I’ll run to Duncan’s Market and grab everything they have on their shelves.”
“I knew I should’ve ordered all the supplies before I left,” Isaac mumbled to no one in particular. It might be the last Saturday of October, but Sugar Falls was experiencing an unprecedented heat wave, and the unusually high temperatures meant nobody wanted to linger in the overheated kitchen this morning. When he’d originally volunteered the fire department to cosponsor the Scouts’ pancake breakfast fund-raiser, he hadn’t anticipated that the National Guard would move his unit’s annual two-week training up an entire month. Which meant that he hadn’t been in Sugar Falls ordering supplies for today.
“What can I do to help?” someone asked over the whirling of the industrial fan behind him.
The back of Isaac’s neck tingled at the familiar sound of the woman’s voice. His breathing stuttered. He hadn’t seen her in over ten years, and last he’d heard, she was joining the Peace Corps or a similar outfit volunteering in Africa somewhere. So surely it couldn’t be...
His dread was confirmed the second he turned around. Hannah Gregson.
His lungs refused to draw air for at least ten seconds as she stood there, her blond hair twisted into a messy knot and her proud sh
oulders pushed back as though she was ready to take on the world’s problems. She didn’t wear an ounce of makeup, but her complexion was as pure and fresh as it had been the summer after their senior year of high school.
“Your pancakes are burning,” she said, grabbing the spatula out of his clenched hand and easily swinging her tall, lithe body in front of his to scoop the blackened circles off the griddle.
Had she not recognized him?
Sure, Isaac had filled out a bit since he was eighteen, and he no longer sported the longer, fuller curls he’d worn in his youth. In fact, his hair was more of a fade now, a shorter style he’d grown accustomed to when he’d joined the Army after college. But he hadn’t changed that much.
Of course, the last time she’d seen Isaac was the night of that Labor Day bonfire and neither one of them had been at their finest.
He cleared his throat. “What are you doing here?”
“Making pancakes?” She tossed a cheeky smile over her shoulder. It was then that recognition finally dawned in her pale blue eyes and he experienced a tiny rush of satisfaction that she appeared to be as thrown off by his presence as he was by hers. “Isaac?”
“What’s this about you needing more batter?” Uncle Jonesy asked as he strode into the kitchen at that exact second. The old cowboy took one look at Hannah and said, “Aw, hell.”
“Hi, Jonesy,” Hannah said, lifting the spatula in a feeble wave. Good. At least she was now aware of the uneasiness circling the confines of this kitchen.
Jonesy was quick to recover, though, because he stepped around the stainless steel worktable in the center of the room and lifted Hannah up into a big bear hug. She let out a surprised squeak and Isaac’s uncle chuckled. “I heard you were back in town, hon.”
Isaac’s eyebrows shot to his hairline. He had? It would’ve been nice if the old man had given him a heads-up.
“I just got back a couple of weeks ago,” she said, and Isaac realized that Hannah must’ve arrived right after he’d left for his Guard training. He hooked his thumbs into his pockets, aiming for a casualness he didn’t feel as he studied her. They never had been able to stay around each other long enough to make things work.
“I bet your mama and daddy are excited you’re finally back in Idaho.” Jonesy smiled.
The Gregsons were originally from Boise. Summer kids, like Isaac, who only visited Sugar Falls during the warm months when they were out on school break. After he moved into the dorms at Yale, he’d heard through the grapevine that Hannah had decided to save money by going to Boise State, which must’ve been a real coincidence since Carter Mahoney was also attending that school on a full ride track-and-field scholarship. After hearing that she’d also gone home with Carter for Thanksgiving that same year, Isaac had made it a point to avoid any conversations that had to do with Hannah Gregson and where she was living. Or who she was seeing.
After ten years, he certainly didn’t want to hear about it now. Rocking back onto the heels of his work boots, Isaac heard the annoyance in his own voice when he asked, “Are you two gonna sit around and catch up or are we going to make some pancakes?”
“Guess I’ll run out and try to wrangle us some more mix.” His uncle’s gaze shifted between them as he scrubbed the gray whiskers on his ruddy face, probably eager to beat a hasty retreat. Deserter.
“Then I’ll get started on another bowl of batter.” Hannah passed the spatula to Isaac, her long, slender fingers coming into contact with his palm. A heat that had nothing to do with the nearby empty griddle spread through his gut.
“You don’t need to help.” Isaac’s tone came out more harsh and dismissive than he’d intended. “What I mean is that the fire department and the Scouts are putting the breakfast on. So we don’t really need any outside volunteers.”
“Hmm.” She looked around the empty kitchen. “It appears that you’re rather short-staffed at the moment.”
Okay, so that was slightly true. But he’d rather have no staff than have a bossy do-gooder like Hannah Gregson near him. Her mere presence echoed everything that his venture capitalist mother had drilled into him as a kid. Being an African American woman married to an older white investment banker, Isaac’s mom constantly had to prove herself at her husband’s bank before launching her own private equity firm and taking the biotech world by storm. Whether it was a grade at the science fair or a game at the county fair, his mother always insisted that her only child be better than the best.
Maybe that ingrained competitiveness was why Hannah’s intrinsic need to lead by example had always come across as a challenge to Isaac.
And today was no different.
“I’m only on my own temporarily,” he defended. “My crew is responding to a call at the elementary school.”
She gasped and he quickly held up his free palm, the one that wasn’t still tingling from her earlier touch. “Don’t worry. It’s the thirteenth time they’ve been out there this weekend. The district went with a low-bid contractor to install the new fire detection system. Most likely it’s another false alarm and they’ll be back in ten minutes.”
Hannah’s mouth relaxed, but her eyes sparkled with determination. “Then I can fill in for them in the meantime.”
With the growing number of young Scouts lining up at the pass-through window waiting for more plates of pancakes to serve, Isaac had to admit that he could use another hand. He studied her slender, strong fingers knotting the apron strings in front of her flat stomach. He just wasn’t quite sure he was ready for her hands.
Isaac cleared his throat. “Thanks for offering, but I’m sure one of the kids’ parents can come back here and help us.”
“I am one of the parents,” she replied, and Isaac’s heart slammed into his rib cage.
“Huh?” He must’ve looked as confused as he felt because Hannah rolled her eyes and jerked a thumb toward the dining area.
“My son’s a Cub Scout and his entire den is out there right now, wondering if these pancakes are going to cook themselves.”
* * *
“You have a son?”
Hannah could see Isaac Jones’s hazel eyes shifting back and forth as his brain made calculations. She hadn’t seen the man in ten years—since before he became a man, really—but some habits were hard to break and she could clearly see that his penchant for jumping to wrong conclusions was one of them. “Yes. His name is Samuel.”
“Is he...? I mean, uh...how old is your...um, son?” Isaac stammered. No doubt that he was expecting the age to coincide with the date they’d last been together and Hannah wondered if the guy’s ego knew no bounds.
Of course, with those wide shoulders and that perfectly warm brownskin with bronze undertones, he was definitely handsome enough to have an ego.
Instead of answering, though, she focused her trembling hands on the task of opening up the only box of pancake mix she could find and dumping it into a stainless steel bowl. After the way Isaac had once broken her trust and her heart, he didn’t even deserve to ask her about the weather, let alone such a personal question.
But her enjoyment at letting him squirm was short-lived because Sammy came into the kitchen at that exact moment. Hannah’s heart melted at her six-year-old’s hesitant steps and his round, wide eyes under the stiff blue cap. Straightening his gold neckerchief, she quietly asked, “How’s it going out there?”
Sammy tugged at her apron and Hannah bent down so she could hear his whispery, soft voice. “Those people sure eat a lot.”
“I know.” Hannah stroked a hand along the boy’s smooth ebony cheek. She’d read all the books and talked to countless other families about the transitioning effects of cross-cultural adoptions and children relocating overseas, especially for a child who had spent most of his life in a village orphanage in Ghana until he’d moved into a small cottage on the same premises with Hannah. “But don’t worry. We will have plenty of
food for everyone. Do you want to help me mix up more pancakes?”
“No, thank you,” her son replied a bit more loudly, his accent making him sound almost British. “Uncle Luke said I could help him count out the change in the box. My cousins told me I need to learn how much the coins are worth so that the other kids at school won’t steal my lunch money and buy pudding cups with it.”
Hannah scrunched her nose. Her twin nephews were already proving to be a horrible influence on Sammy. But at least the nine-year-olds were coaxing the shy boy out of his shell and attempting to protect their newest family member. She gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze and tried to ignore Isaac’s blatant stare from the other side of the kitchen as Sammy walked out, only slightly more confident than he’d been when he entered.
“Was that your son?” Isaac asked, his voice even deeper and smoother than it had been when they were teenagers.
Stiffening her spine as straight as it would go, she turned to confront the man she’d stupidly fallen for all those years ago.
“I adopted him while I was in Africa on a Teachers Without Borders program.”
He slowly nodded and she watched the relief drain over his face. Then one side of his full lips quirked up, immediately reminding her body of the way his mischievous smile had always had the ability to draw her in. “So you became a teacher after all.”
Hannah grunted, choking down her outrage. How dare he take pride in the memory of their late-night talks sitting on the tailgate of his Uncle Jonesy’s old, rusted-out pickup truck? The conversations where she’d told him about her ambitions and her dreams and he’d told her that she was going to make the world a better place. She cracked an egg so hard, half the shell fell into her mixing bowl.
Luckily, she was saved from having to make any further casual small talk when his uncle swung through the door, balancing a sack of pancake mix in each gnarled hand. “Look what I found! No thanks to Freckles over at the Cowgirl Up Café, mind you. That ol’ gal cursed me up and down a blue streak for not knowin’ that her flapjacks were made from scratch.”
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