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My breath stalled in my lungs as searing arousal rolled through me. I hadn’t expected him to lay it out like that. My mouth tipped up in a smile. “Too bad we have two hundred people less than twenty feet away.”

“I’m not sure I care,” he said, voice raspy and so damn sexy.

Before I could say anything, he tugged me inside the office and closed the door. Then his body pushed mine against the wall and his hands cupped my head. All of his tiredness seemed to have evaporated. His mouth came down on mine, hard, and I was ready for it. I’d been hoping for more than a few moments of talk, but I wasn’t going to push. He was tired, exhausted, probably. And I had no place to ask more of him.

His touch encouraged me, though. The urgency in his mouth as he taunted and tasted me fed my excitement. My body was warming, loosening, and if we didn’t have those two hundred people out there, I totally would have straddled him on that narrow bed across the room. It had been a long time since I’d been with anyone, and my body was hungry.

Jack’s hands ran down my sides, pausing to play at the edge of my breasts. His thumbs teased the sides of my bra, and I really wanted him to move more central, but he didn’t. I let out a little gasp and shifted my chest, trying to get him to touch me, but he lifted his head, grinning.

“Do you need help with something, Ms. Hill?”

That fun, teasing quirk to his mouth made me smile. I’d never seen him look so relaxed. “Well, you are in the help-the-community business. And I’m part of the community.”

“You are,” he said, and leaned in to run kisses from the edge of my ear and down my neck. I shivered hard, my legs quivering. My ex had never made me feel this on edge, this quickly. I gripped Jack’s shoulders, then the back of his head as he went lower. He was pressing kisses to my cleavage when he pulled back.

“We’re getting close to the point of no return,” he murmured, regret heavy in his raspy voice.

I knew he was right, but it was difficult to let him go. I tugged him forward and pressed a kiss to his hard lips. “I know you’re right.”

Before I could change my mind, I turned and let myself out of the office.

8

Cameron

The firehouse was different by the next day. The fire had backed down, leaving burned desolation as a landscape. One Eagleheart suburb had lost almost a block of homes. Once Jack had confirmation, he broke the news to the owners that were in the station house. There were a lot of tears. One woman wailed that her cat had still been in her house. He’d been too scared for her to grab on the way out.

It was heartbreaking, watching the desolation, and tears filled my own eyes.

Families were trickling out, heading back to see if their homes still stood. The buzz of voices had dulled to a nervous undercurrent, lighter than the night before but no less sharp.

I sat at the same bay door as before, cup of water in hand, staring out at a sky that was finally more gray than red. The ridge still smoked, but the worst was behind us. That’s what they said, anyway.

Most of the people around here talked like fires happened all the time, and maybe it did. Maybe I was just getting used to this new territory I was living in. We rarely ever worried about fires in Illinois.

Was my little cabin still standing? The thought of losing it twisted my stomach. Even though I hadn’t been here long, I loved the quiet and the freshness of the mountain. I should go home too. I’d done my part for the community, and now I needed to concentrate on myself. My cabin sat right at the edge of a thick forest, tucked between pines that would’ve gone up like matchsticks if the fire had rolled too far. No one could tell me for sure. The uncertainty sat like a rock in my stomach.

I rubbed my thumb over the rim of the cup, pretending I wasn’t just waiting. Pretending my eyes weren’t tracking the firehouse floor, following every pair of broad shoulders until I found the ones I was looking for.

I finally spotted him near his truck, leaning against the side panel, watching people leave his station house. His turnout gear was gone, traded for jeans and a clean navy shirt. He looked different in the daylight—still tired, lines deep around his mouth, but softer now. The scar stood out starkly against his temple and down his cheek, but it didn’t diminish him in any way. I spotted more than one woman giving him a considering look as they walked out.

I thought about the kitten in the office and smiled. He’d kept it close, despite what he’d said about the shelter. I also thought about the kiss last night, and I wondered if he thought about it as well. It had rocked me to my foundations, and I wanted to investigate it more.

Setting my cup on a table, I walked toward Jack, heartbeat picking up with every step. His eyes found me before I even said a word.

“You should be resting,” I said, stopping a few feet away. My voice sounded steadier than I felt.

His mouth quirked at the corner. “Could say the same for you.”

“I’m not the one who’s been hauling hoses and digging firebreaks.”

“No, but you’ve been running this place like you’ve done it all your life. Between the games, the kids, the two hundred people asking you for things, and keeping everyone calm, you should be just as tired.” He studied me, eyes narrowing just slightly. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I wanted to,” I admitted. My throat tightened. “This is my new home, and it felt good to be useful.”

His gaze lingered. Not just polite or grateful—something else. Something heavier. “You were,” he said finally. His voice was lower now, almost quiet. “More than you know.”

For a moment, the silence stretched between us, thick and full. I tried to look away, but my eyes kept zeroing back to his. To the way he was watching me like he’d already memorized my face and was checking to see if it had changed.