Sadie holds my gaze, stubborn as ever. “I didn’t ask you to stay marked.”
“You didn’t have to,” I say, and the words come out like gravel.
For a second, her expression softens—just a crack—before she rebuilds the wall.
“Lieutenant,” she says carefully, like she’s stepping back over the line. “Do you want me on gear inventory, or do you want me on emotional autopsy?”
A laugh barks out of me before I can stop it. Short. Sharp. Unfamiliar.
Sadie blinks, thrown.
“Gear inventory,” I say. “But nice try, Hotshot.”
The nickname slips out like it was waiting behind my teeth.
Her eyes widen, then her mouth curves slow. “You said it.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did.”
“I didn’t,” I repeat, then step back, because the warmth in her smile is dangerous. “Get to work.”
Sadie turns back to the wall, shoulders squared, but I catch the way her fingers tremble slightly around the pen.
Good.
Not because I want to hurt her.
Because I want her to feel it too.
Ash strolls back in with a grin that could be used as a weapon. “So, Lieutenant—should we install that sprinkler system now or wait until you two spontaneously combust?”
I don’t look away from Sadie. “Wait.”
“Smart,” Ash says. “Budget’s tight.”
Sadie keeps writing, but her voice floats over her shoulder, sweet as poison. “If you install sprinklers, I’m billing the firehouse for water damage.”
Axel whoops from the kitchen. “She’s perfect!”
I rub a hand over my jaw, forcing my face back into something neutral. Professional. Unshakable.
But inside?
Inside, the old flame isn’t dead.
It’s just been waiting.
And Sadie Marshall just walked in with a match.
Chapter 2
Sadie
Iknew coming back to Devil’s Peak would mean seeing Levi Kane again.
I just didn’t prepare for the way he’d look at me like I was both a problem and a memory he’d never finished burning.
