I’m dead.
I must be.
I’m weightless in the arms of the most handsome man I’ve ever seen.
Piercing blue eyes lock onto mine, so intense I forget how to breathe. Though the smirk on his face is more sinner than saint.
Heaven, hell, I don’t care—if this is the afterlife, I’m not complaining.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” he asks in a British accent, and it’s official—I’ve died and gone to firefighter-calendar heaven.
I don’t see any fingers. Just swirls of blue, dazzling like the shimmer of dragonstone. At least he’s looking into my eyes and not at the taco stain on my tatty pyjamas.
“You took quite a tumble there, miss,” he says, his voice rough, but it caresses me like velvet.
“But you caught me. Mr. October.” I can’t seem to wipe the doe-eyed smile from my face.
The blue-eyed fireman looks around, then back at me. “Mr. October, huh?”
“Yes, or are you Mr. July because I feel fireworks in my tummy?”
He chuckles. “Okay, maybe you hit your head on the way down.”
Boots crunch around me, voices murmur, and the cold bite of October air seeps through my dressing gown.
“My head?” I don’t feel any pain in my head. “It’s my ankle that hurts.”
He sets me down on the damp grass. Large calloused hands glide down my leg, and I wince at the three-day-old stubble on my calf.
The tree on my front lawn looms overhead as if it wants in on the joke of my life, its shadows dancing across me like fingers poking fun, while the fairy lights sag uselessly from my gutter, no longer twinkling. Figures.
I thought in heaven we all looked hot and in our prime. But I’m still fat and forty, and my sight’s not the best without my reading glasses. And what’s this throbbing pain in my ankle where his glorious hands are warming? I haven’t died at all. I’m outside my bungalow and, even worse, the most beautiful fireman from my brother’s unit is caressing my foot and…oh crap.
“Fidget?” I croak, cheeks heating as I pull my dressing gown closed over my chest before he notices my boobs slipping into my armpits.
He glances up at the roof, then back at me. “Don’t you worry about the kitty, miss. I’ll take care of it.”
Something deep in my chest twinges, as if he’s shocked my heart back to life after ten long years. My body is on fire, burning as if I have a fever. The embarrassment of it all is too much. Voices muffle, getting further away as I’m pulled back into the darkness, hoping this time the ground will swallow me whole.
Black.
Now I really am dead.
Chapter Two
DRAKE
“Daddy, what if my teacher’s horrible?” Sienna’s small hand tightens around mine as we step into the wide, echoing corridor of her new school.
I look down at my six-year-old, her plaits swinging against the straps of her brand-new rucksack, and give her what I hope is a reassuring smile. She’s been through more than any little girl should in the last eighteen months. Losing her mum. Leaving the house she was born in. Starting over in a new country.
Moving here wasn’t an easy decision, but we both needed her mum’s parents close by. I needed their help. She needed a family who could remind her of the woman I refuse to let her forget.
“I’m sure your new teacher will be nice. Have you ever had a horrible teacher?” I raise an eyebrow at her and grip her hand tighter in a reassuring squeeze.
“Yes, Mrs. Leadbeater.” Her nose wrinkles. “She was always shouting. Mummy had to tell her off, remember?”
A quiet laugh escapes me at the memory. My wife had been fierce in protecting our girl. She could face down anyone if it meant keeping Sienna safe. She just wasn’t strong enough to survive the car accident.
