Chapter 1
Levi
“Lieutenant Kane?”
Her voice hits the back of my neck like a match.
I freeze with a clipboard in my hand, knuckles whitening around the edge. For a second, my body forgets how to do anything but listen.
I turn slowly.
Sadie.My Sadiestands inside the bay in full intern gear, hair pulled back tight, helmet tucked under her arm. Turnout coat swallowed by a frame that used to fit against my chest like it belonged there. She’s older than the girl who left. Sharper around the eyes. The kind of pretty that doesn’t ask permission. The kind that knows.
And she’s at home in my firehouse like she never walked away from it.
“Intern Marshall,” I say, because if I say her first name, Sadie Marshall, I’m going to taste high school summers and broken promises and everything I told myself I’d stop wanting.
Her mouth twitches. Not quite a smile. Not quite not.
“Sadie,” she corrects, polite. Professional. As if she didn’t once steal my sweatshirt and sleep in it after summer bonfires and breathless kisses.
“Intern,” I repeat. My gaze drops deliberately to the badge on her chest, like I don’t know the shape of her mouth by heart. “You’re late.”
Her brows lift. “I’m three minutes early.”
Her smile flickers, and lands somewhere low in my gut.
I take one step closer, then stop myself. Space is safer. Space is control.
“Chief Marshall in his office?” she asks, nodding toward the hallway. Chief Marshall.Her father. The words are normal. The question is normal. The fact that her father’s name is now a wall between us is not.
“Yes,” I say. “He’s expecting you.” The truth is, I’ve known this day was coming for the last week when Chief announced that his daughter would be interning with us for the summer, but I still wasn’t prepared. Four years gone and she still takes my breath away.
Sadie shifts her weight, and the helmet under her arm bumps against her hip. She adjusts it like she’s adjusted this kind of weight a hundred times. Like she didn’t leave Devil’s Peak with a backpack and a scholarship and a tear-streaked face she swore was just allergies.
“Thanks,” she says, and her eyes meet mine. “Lieutenant Kane.”
There it is again. That careful distance. That formal tone. The little blade she slides between my shoulders and twists.
My jaw tightens. “Don’t.”
Her lashes lower. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t say it like that.”
A beat stretches—hot and sharp—while the rest of the bay keeps breathing around us. Hoses. Tools. Diesel and metal. Thefaint sound of Axel and the rest of the crew in the kitchen laughing at something stupid on someone’s phone.
Sadie’s voice drops when she speaks again. “Like what?”
Like a stranger. Like I’m just a title. Like you didn’t once call me Levi with your mouth pressed to my throat.
I don’t say any of that. I can’t. Not here.
“Just… don’t,” I grind out, and pivot away before the sound of my own pulse gives me away.
I hear her take a breath. I hear the smallest shift of gear as she turns. Then her boots tap down the hallway toward her father’s office.
The moment she’s out of my sight, my chest loosens like it’s been braced for impact and finally takes the hit. I set the clipboard down harder than necessary on the workbench.
