“Is it okay to sell things baked in a home kitchen? I mean, with the café gone, everyone will know.”
“Yeah. Both Mom and I are licensed. I got her kitchen certified while I was still living with her because I was always making things for locals. After Evan died, I knew I’d need the extra money, so I certified my kitchen as well. It’s come in handy when I get a last-minute order or I just want to be home at night or on weekends.”
“That’s smart. I never realized how small this kitchen is until now, watching you try to bake in it.”
She laughs and puts one finger in her mouth, sucking off something chocolate. I barely hold back a groan.
“I need to change and get these out to people on my way to the hospital.” She covers the mixing bowl with cling wrap and slides it into the fridge, then comes toward me on her way out of the kitchen. “I have a batch in the oven. Can you just watch those—”
I put out an arm and hook her by the waist, then draw her close. Once she’s in my arms, I turn to rest against the island and lift a hand to wipe the chocolate from her cheek. All while her gaze holds on my chest. “Why aren’t you looking at me?”
She exhales, and her eyes slide closed. “Because I’m embarrassed—no, mortified—I’m mortified by the way I acted last night. I don’t have any excuse. You were being an amazing friend, and I shouldn’t have… I mean, I feel like I took advantage of that friendship. So, I’m sorry. I just…I don’t know what’s happening, but it has to stop.”
I tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She’s right. This is wrong. I swear I feel Evan trying to push his way in between us. “I didn’t put on the brakes last night because I don’t want you. I put on the brakes because I do.”
She looks up, brow pulled in a frown. “What?”
“I want you,” I tell her, even while my throat is twisting tighter as if trying to strangle me so the words don’t come out. “And I’m having a hard time reconciling that with my conscience. I didn’t want last night to be a… I don’t know. If you sleep with me, I don’t want you thinking of it as a mistake.”
Just saying the words “sleep with me” pumps more juice into my erection and tightens a band around my heart.
“Oh, no, no, no.” She pushes against my chest, but I hold her arms gently. “Don’t tell me that.”
“Why not? I felt it, Nat. We both did.”
She stares at my chest for a long moment. “Look, I know firefighting is your life. I know it will always be your first love. I get it, and I never want you to lose that. Especially not because of me. But I can’t be with someone who risks their life every day. I’ve already lost my dad and my husband and almost lost my mom, all to fire.”
Her breathing hitches, and she finally looks up at me with tears in her eyes. “I can’t put my heart into someone and take that risk. Not again.”
She pushes away from me and disappears into her bedroom.
I feel like I’ve been kicked in the gut.
She’s right—about everything. My job isn’t just what I do, it’s an integral part of who I am. I didn’t end up here as a fluke like others did. The first time I saw the wild flames of an uncontained fire, I knew fighting it was my life’s work. I was eighteen, and it was the very first fire I was ever dispatched to.
I went after firefighting as a career. I busted my ass to get a bachelor’s degree in fire science, and I’m working my way through a master’s degree in emergency and disaster management with a plan of moving up the chain of command. I fuckin’ love what I do, heart and soul. It makes me proud of who I am, who I can grow to be, and that eases the shame of where I came from. I can’t even imagine where I’d be without this damn job.
At the same time, I can’t imagine my feelings for Natalie ever dimming either. They just keep getting stronger. She gets harder and harder to keep at arm’s length, and after last night, all bets are off. Only, she wants someone like Mr. Noodle, the absolute opposite of who I am. The kind of man I can’t be. I shouldn’t even allow myself to fantasize about her. It’s wrong in the most fundamental way.
The oven timer dings. I find a mitt and pull two sheets of cookies from the oven, only there’s nowhere to put them.
I’m spinning in circles trying to figure it out when Natalie comes in wearing dark jeans and a pink tank top, her hair so straight and shiny, it looks like she’s wearing a perpetual halo. She quickly moves things around so I have a place to put the cookies down. I toss the mitts aside and brace my hands on the counter behind me. “Can we talk about this?”
“We have. Evan used to say you were born to lead. I’m sure as shit not going to be the woman who interferes with your dreams.” She puts the warm cookies in a tin, separating them with parchment paper so they won’t stick. “I’m thirty, Cole. I’ve wanted to start a family since I was twenty-five. You aren’t anywhere near ready to settle down. You can’t stick with one woman longer than a few months. And that’s fine, you’re only twenty-eight, you’ve got plenty of time. We want and need different things, and we need to course correct before our friendship implodes.”
She’s right. I know she’s right.
“Ever since I’ve known you,” she says, “the fire service is all you’ve ever wanted, and to be honest, I don’t want a damn thing to do with it anymore.”
That dig shoots an unexpected arrow into my heart.
She piles boxes and bags and tins into her arms. “I’m bowing out of my place in the benevolent fund once Lisa is settled. Her situation has been hell on me, and I’m doing both of us a disservice. Fucking fire…” She says, her voice sharp. “It’s taken everything I’ve ever loved. I’m not going to keep feeding it. You can have any woman you want in this damned town. Choose someone who helps you get where you want to go, not someone who limits you.”
She steps close and kisses my cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow at Lisa’s.”
Then she escapes the kitchen and closes the front door on her way out, leaving me hollow and aching.
7
Natalie
I feel hungover as I step onto the hospital elevator. It’s just after 6:00 a.m. and well before regular visiting hours, but I don’t have anything else to do, anywhere else to go. The only sleep I got last night was in Cole’s arms, but it was the deepest, most restful sleep I’ve had in years. Then I went and messed up everything by coming onto him.
I groan and squeeze my eyes tight, seriously horrified. I can make all the excuses I want—I was half asleep, reeling from the nightmare, bone dry after years of loneliness—but I can’t shirk responsibility. I wanted him. I still want him.
And I can’t have him.
Can’t.
Memories of Evan’s death return with a fresh wave of loss. All the painful memories filter through my head and into my heart—from getting the call to heading to the hospital to Cole standing beside me at Evan’s funeral to the empty house it took me a year to get used to.
Over the last two years, I’ve fought to heal, struggled to move on. And swore over and over I’d never choose that life again. A life where I live in worry and fear, a life risking my heart every day.