I can’t tell Ginger how much I envy her finding Mr. Right. I also can’t tell CeCe I feel light-years behind her, watching her baby bump grow while she and her husband Nash prepare for the arrival of their daughter.
I can’t tell either of them how lonely I feel every time I glance at Biscuit’s cat bed in the corner. He’d been my companion since I was fourteen, right around the time I started feeling the loss of my birth parents. That’s when I started asking more questions. What did I get from each of them? What were their personalities like? What were their dreams, their aspirations? Questions that will go forever unanswered. My adoptive mom was my birth mother’s second cousin and her closest living relative. Some old newspaper articles about their car crash and a few photos my mom salvaged from my family’s home are all I have left of them.
Since I can’t bring allthatbaggage to my two friends right now, who are experiencing the best time of their lives, I simply gush with them and say all the right things from my end of the phone, like the dutiful bridesmaid I am.
After we say goodbye, I wrap my sweater tighter around my body, my head swirling. It’s still cool, although spring is almosthere and the sugar maples in my yard are starting to bloom. They frame the outdoor space and remind me why I’ve loved this house since the moment I viewed it with my parents after college. It’s historic to this part of Laurel Creek, and it was cheap, because it needed a lot of cosmetic work. Which I loved. Design is my passion: clothing, interior, landscape, even baking fancy desserts. You name it, when it comes to being creative, I’m in.
I hit play on my country playlist as I wait for my bread to bake and a sappy love song by Kacey Musgraves plays as I pull up the photos of my cousin’s wedding. I scroll through them quickly before making the mistake of moving back into my own camera roll. Photos of me, CeCe, and Ginger a few years ago, just after CeCe moved home from living in Seattle. We were almost always together back then, and seeing our smiling faces fuels a sense of nostalgia.
What I fail to notice during my drunken stroll down memory lane is the smoke filling my kitchen. It isn’t until I hear the smoke alarm that I jerk up and bolt into the house. The moment I see flames through my oven door, I scream and run through fire safety 101 in my head. Ripping flowers out of a vase on my island and tossing them to the floor, I make it to the oven armed with just a touch of water and yank the door open.
Big mistake.
The flames escape as I toss the vase water onto the burning bread. I’m not accurate, so half of it lands on the floor as the towel hanging beside the stove lights up. I try to grab it and toss it into my sink with another scream, but it lands on my counter instead and I watch in horror as my kitchen curtains catch fire. It feels like I’m having an out-of-body experience as the flames start to move—to my well-lacquered wooden range hood, the stack of bills on my counter, my cookbooks. The fuel is abundant in my small kitchen. It’s been mere moments butthis is well beyond my drunken realm of management.
Pulling my phone, which is ironically blaring “Burning House” by Cam, from my sweater pocket, I call for the fire department.
“Nine-one-one, state your emergency,” the voice answers as I back out of the kitchen and into my living room.
“Everything is on fire! Oh myGod! …” I stammer, the heat following me. I give the woman on the end of the line my address, trying to explain what happened in a tipsy sort of word vomit.
“Ma’am, you need to go outside,” she says calmly, though I’m already pulling open the front door. “Don’t stop to take anything with you, understand?”
“Yes. I—” I start coughing.
“Okay, ma’am. Are you outside?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, good, stay there. LCFD are already on their way. I’m going to stay on the line. Don’t go back into the premises.”
I cough again as I do what she says, shifting from one slipper-clad foot to the other on my front lawn, shivering and sobbing as I wait for the fire department to arrive. Fresh panic falls over me as I watch the flames continue to blaze in my kitchen.
Finally, flashing red lights round the corner of my street. A cruiser truck hurtles toward me, followed by a full-sized fire-truck.
My throat is hoarse and I’m shaking as I move toward the truck, which pulls up in front of my house. The moment the door opens I freeze, because thelastman on earth I’d choose to see me like this exits the truck. He’s dressed in full fire gear, helmet pulled low over intense gray eyes and what I’m almost certain will be an annoyed furrow in his dark brows. Our mysterious and dangerously hot fire chief, Asher fucking Reed.
CHAPTER 2
Olivia
My stomach drops and I’m suddenly all too aware of my slightly drunk, very frazzled state. One that isn’t equipped to handle Asher. Because this man is notjustgood-looking. That’s much too boring of a description for him. At six foot five, he’s bigeverywhere;his jaw is wide and chiseled, covered by a full dark beard. Every angle of his face is symmetrical, straight and strong, and his skin is laden with ink, intricate tattoos that run from his neck all the way down to his knuckles. The mysterious burn scars that creep up his hands, only add to his allure.
He’s powerful and commanding, and as he leans into the truck and pulls out a thermal blanket, my mouth goes dry and my vision blurs. Asher calls orders over his shoulder to the rest of his crew as they start pulling a thick hose out of the truck. One of them is familiar: Walker Black, the middle son from the Grosvenor Cattle Ranch just outside of town and, if I remember correctly, Asher’s volunteer assistant captain.
Asher doesn’t waste any time approaching me. His woodsy and clean scent, one I’d know anywhere, smells like oak andbergamot. Right now it’s mixed with a hint of smoke from his gear, and somehow even that is enticing.
Of course Asher would be on call tonight. Of course he’d be here smelling delicious and peering down at me like I’m the biggest pain in his ass.
“Liv,” he greets curtly as he wraps the blanket around my shoulders. His voice is a deep timbre with a slight Irish accent. It’s a voice that has always felt like the promise of something darker, born from the most suppressed part of my dreams. The kind of dreams I’ve pushed down for as long as I can remember.
God I’m drunk.
“I need to assess you,” he says, as I rearrange the idiotic stare I’m sure I’m wearing while I watch his face, his throat, his lips.
He doesn’t seem to notice; his gray eyes are devoid of emotion as he checks me over.
“Anyone else on the premises? Pets?”
