Author: Bella Andre

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.

For some reason, only one particular firefighter had that effect on her.

Shaking the useless realization out of her head, she made it a point to meet everyone and to thank them for what they’d all done as a team for her and her daughter. She noticed a few eyebrows rising when she pointed out her daughter over by the antique engine, the way the other firefighters looked at each other as if they were in on a secret she didn’t know.

Summer and the man who made her heart go boom! were laughing together over something and for a moment Megan wanted to pretend they were more than strangers, that her daughter had a father figure to teach her things, to be proud of her, to tell her he loved her at night before tucking her in with a sweet kiss good night.

“Am I smelling blueberry muffins?”

Todd, the captain, came around the corner just then and she smiled at the very nice middle-aged man who had so graciously taken her in to meet her savior in the hospital.

“Summer made them,” she said before moving into the front room to pick up the container with the muffins.

She nearly walked into a pretty woman. “Oh hi, sorry, I didn’t mean to almost knock you ov—” She stopped in the middle of the word. “Sophie? It’s me, Megan Harris.” She shook her head. “Well, I was Megan Green back in college.”

“Megan!” Sophie’s arms came around her and they hugged. Sophie pulled back. “I can’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve seen you. Six, seven years?”

They’d both worked part-time in the Stanford library and had spent enough hours shelving and cataloguing books together in the dark stacks that they’d become friends. They probably would have become even closer were it not for Megan getting pregnant with Summer. Once she and David had married, she’d temporarily left school to follow her Navy pilot husband to his new base assignment in San Diego.

“You look great,” she said to Sophie.

“So do you!” Her old friend looked confused. “I haven’t seen you here before. Are you working with the station on something?”

Megan felt bad about not having kept in better touch. “My daughter wanted to come bring muffins over.”

“Oh my gosh, how could I have forgotten that you got married and had a baby? Where is she?”

Megan pointed to the corner where the antique engine was. “Summer is over there with one of the firefighters.”

Sophie frowned again. “Wait a minute. Your daughter’s name is Summer?” She cocked her head to the side. “Are you the mother and daughter Gabe saved a couple of months ago?”

At nearly the exact same moment, Megan realized she’d missed a very important clue along the way. Sullivan was such a common surname that she hadn’t thought to link Sophie and Gabe together.

“Are you his sister?” When Sophie nodded, Megan finally replied, “Yes, your brother saved us. He’s Summer’s hero for life.” She added softly, “Mine, too.” Smiling, she told Sophie, “She baked him muffins this morning and I believe she’s just about to convince him to let her drive that antique fire truck around the block.”

Megan worked to keep her voice light. God forbid Sophie ever realized how ridiculously attracted she was to her brother. Talk about awkward.

“You should see all those buttons and knobs!” Summer ran over at full speed across the cement floor. Gabe was nowhere to be seen for the time being. “It’s so awesome! I love firefighting! Thanks for finally letting me come here!”

Megan caught her daughter’s hand as she gestured excitedly and chattered about the wonders of the fire truck. “Honey, this is a friend of mine from college. Her name is Sophie.”

Sophie bent down to Summer’s level and said, “Oh my gosh, you’re gorgeous!”

Summer beamed her biggest smile at Sophie. “You’re pretty, too.”

Sophie laughed. “What kind of stories do you like?”

The little girl thought about it a minute. “All of them.”

Sophie shot Megan a delighted look. “Perfect.” She quickly explained, “I’m a librarian at the branch just around the corner. I’d love for you two to come in and see me. Especially since I’m always looking for good readers to help with story time for the little ones.”

Her daughter raised her hand. “I can do that. I’m a really good reader.”

“I’ll bet you are, with a mom as smart as yours.”

Just then, tingles moved up Megan’s spine. She looked up and saw Gabe heading toward them.

Megan wished she weren’t quite so aware of him...and that he wasn’t so darn attractive, period. It was a good thing Sophie and Summer were talking about their favorite picture books and didn’t require much participation from her, because Gabe’s nearness always seemed to suck her brain cells dry.

She was surprised to find he didn’t look pleased to see Sophie. Which was confirmed when he said, “Hey Soph, what are you doing here?” in a curt voice.

His sister simply grinned at him, clearly not at all put off by his gruff greeting. “I thought I’d bring you something healthy for breakfast.” She lifted a bag and opened it up so he could see inside. “Whole wheat morning buns. No added sugar or preservatives.”

He grimaced. “I’ve already got some really great muffins waiting for me, but thanks anyway.”

Shrugging, she closed the bag and said, “Can you believe that Megan and I know each other from college? Amazing, isn’t it?”

He looked between the two of them, even less pleased than he had been just moments before. “Amazing.” His voice was flat. And distinctly irritated.

Megan was glad her daughter had been pulled away by the rest of the members of the fire crew, who were telling her she was the best muffin maker who ever lived. Otherwise even Summer couldn’t have missed Gabe’s abrupt shift in demeanor.

This time around Megan wasn’t at all hurt by his hard mask. Not when she’d sailed right past hurt straight to mad. Whatever his problem was, he didn’t know the first thing about her, and she didn’t deserve to be the recipient of his bad attitude.

Yes, she owed him her thanks—forever—for what he’d done for her and Summer. But she could be thankful away from him, privately in her thoughts, when he wasn’t busy staring her down as if she had a contagious disease.

“Thank you for showing Summer the engine,” she said to him in her most polite, distant voice, before turning to his sister with a warm, genuine smile. “I’m so glad we ran into you, Sophie.”

“I know. I can’t believe I didn’t know you were living so close by.”

Megan shook her head. “I’m afraid I didn’t do a good job of keeping in touch with anyone after David and I got married and moved to San Diego.”