Brave the Heat

by Sara Humphreys

  She patted him on the arm and headed back toward her office.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He stood taller and adjusted his jacket. “I’ll see to it.”

  “And, Gavin?” She stopped outside the main office door and shouted back, “Don’t get too set in your ways. You never know what might be right around the corner.”

  Principal Drummond’s round form disappeared into her office, leaving him alone in the hallway that had once seemed so much longer.

  Gavin stepped out into the warm sunshine and exhaled slowly. All this talk about Jordan had him feeling tense and off his game. The flag on the massive white pole fluttered in the June breeze. The tall, white steeple of St. Joseph’s Church and a few buildings from town peeked out from amid the trees, which were capped by a cloudless azure sky. Old Brookfield was a perfect New England hamlet, and Gavin had nothing but appreciation for his hometown.

  Turning his face to the early summer sky, he stood on the paved walkway and allowed the warmth of the afternoon sun to wash over him. A balmy breeze wafted past, and with it came the salty ocean air. The school was a couple of miles from the shore, but even at this distance he could smell the sweet scent of freedom.

  The warmer weather meant getting outdoors, and there was nothing Gavin hated more than being cooped up inside. Jordan used to say that she thought he was part dolphin because of the amount of time he spent in the water. She probably wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to hear he’d moved into the cottage on his parents’ property.

  He had to be a glutton for punishment. The first thing he saw every damn morning was that freaking lighthouse. Their lighthouse.

  The sound of a school bus engine rumbling as it turned into the school’s long, curved driveway pulled him from his memories. He let out a sound of frustration. Would he ever be able to forget and move on? He’d dated other women and slept with his share, but none of them had ever compared to her.

  But what did it matter? She was gone. She had a husband, two kids, and a life that didn’t include him. Hell, his didn’t include her either. His job left little time for dating, and work was a lot more straightforward than romance or matters of the heart.

  Fire might be tricky and unpredictable, but at least he knew how to put it out. He couldn’t say the same thing about love or a broken heart. That kind of beating stuck with you and stung like hell, and as far as he was concerned, it was not for him.

  Feeling foolish for allowing himself to dwell on days gone by, Gavin rolled his shoulder and tried to shake off the uncomfortable feelings. He opened his eyes as the school bus pulled past him. He had to quit dragging his feet and get his ass back to the station.

  He headed toward his four-wheel drive, the only car in the lot with red sirens on top. The town had offered to buy him a new vehicle when he was promoted to chief, but he was happy with his old Explorer from his volunteer days. He’d taken good care of it over the years and the damn thing still purred like a kitten. Why waste taxpayer dollars on something he didn’t really need?

  As the tail end of the yellow behemoth went by and its puff of exhaust dissipated, Gavin came face-to-face with his past.

  He stopped dead in his tracks. The years vanished. Gavin found himself staring into a pair of familiar brown eyes. Long, blond hair with golden honey-colored streaks drifted over her slim, tanned shoulders, and a yellow sundress fluttered around her legs. An ache bloomed in Gavin’s chest as those full pink lips curved into that devastatingly beautiful, familiar smile.

  It was like getting a punch in the gut and having the wind knocked out of him.

  In that moment, he wasn’t the fire chief of Old Brookfield. He was an eighteen-year-old kid looking at the girl who had stolen his heart…and broken it.

  “Hello, Gavin.” The musical lilt of her voice wafted over him like cool mist and willed him closer, but he held his ground. Her eyes crinkled at the corners as her smile widened slowly, almost tentatively. It still blinded him. “I—it’s been a long time.”

  “Jordan?” He licked his suddenly dry lips and squinted. Was he really seeing what he thought he was seeing? A million questions, peppered with angry accusations, filled his head. She looked exactly the same as she had fifteen years ago, still so strikingly and effortlessly beautiful. “When did you—?”

  Before he could utter a word, a flurry of movement caught his attention and the present came crashing back with a vengeance. Two adorable little blond girls clung to Jordan’s skirt, one on either side of her. They had Jordan’s fair hair and her big, brown eyes—eyes that peered at him with more than a little trepidation.

  The older one on Jordan’s right was casting a suspicious look Gavin’s way. “Where’s your truck?” she asked. “Why don’t you have a truck?”

  “Lily, don’t be rude.” Jordan gently wrapped her arm around her daughter reassuringly. “He has one right over there.” She nodded toward his four-wheel drive. “See? It has the lights on top.”

  “That’s not a fire truck, Mama. That’s a regular one that regular people drive.” Pursing her lips together, Lily looked over her shoulder at his truck and then back to Gavin. Squinting against the glare of the sun, she swiped a long strand of hair out of her eyes. She pointed at him. “You’re a fireman, aren’t you? So where’s your truck?”

  “Yes.” Gavin found himself hopelessly charmed by the brazen questions from the curious little girl. He caught Jordan’s eye, but she quickly turned her attention back to her daughter. “I’m a fireman.”

  Jordan and the girls stepped onto the sidewalk as she gathered their tiny hands in hers. He sensed hesitance from all three of them, but as always Jordan forged ahead. She hadn’t changed a bit. Stubborn and strong willed in spite of the awkward situation.

  “Lily, is it?” Gavin slowly closed the distance between them before squatting down so he was eye to eye with Jordan’s girls. “Lily, you are absolutely right. I am a fireman, but I don’t have the engine here. It’s back at the station, which is where I have to be going. I was at home when the call came in, so I drove here in my regular truck. I don’t keep the engine at my house.” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper and winked. “Wouldn’t fit in my driveway.”

  Lily giggled and flashed him a wide, gap-toothed grin before once again clinging to her mother. Gavin tapped his fingers on the helmet he held between his hands and rose to his feet. The instant Jordan’s soulful brown eyes clapped onto his, his stomach dropped to his feet. Had it really been fifteen years?

  There was so much he wanted to say, but he had no damn idea where to begin, and based on her expression, neither did she. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to shake her and scream at her or hug her and kiss the life out of her.

  Silence hung between them for a few more uncomfortable seconds before Jordan finally took the leap.

  “Girls, this is an old friend of mine, Gavin McGuire.” Gentleness edged her voice. “He’s the fire chief here in Old Brookfield.”

  Gavin stilled. She knew about his promotion to chief? What else did she know? Did she know he had spent countless nights dreaming about her and wondering why the hell she left town without a word? Why she’d left him.

  “Nice to meet you,” Lily said sweetly. She grabbed the skirt of her floral sundress and curtsied for him in an adorable old-world gesture. “I’m Lily Ann McKenna, and that’s my little sister, Grace Marie McKenna, but she won’t talk to you ’cause you’re a stranger.”

  “Well, it’s real nice to meet you, Lily and Grace. I’m Gavin, and now that we’ve been introduced, we’re not strangers anymore, right?” He smiled at the smaller one who quickly hid her face in the fabric of Jordan’s dress. He looked at Jordan and quietly said, “We’re not strangers at all, are we, Mrs. McKenna?”

  Jordan opened her mouth as if she was going to say something, but quickly shut it again and shook her head. The gesture was shockingly familiar. She used to do it all the time when they were kids, like she was silently scolding herself for whatever she was going to spit out. The
n she’d decide against it and say nothing. It was a habit she’d picked up from living with her old man. He was a mean, old son of a bitch, and Gavin had gotten into it with the guy on more than one occasion.

  “My father’s been sick.”

  “Right.” Gavin nodded. The guy had been sick in the head for years, and his body was finally catching up. He’d heard that the old bastard was in a bad way; couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. “Maddy told me.”

  She nibbled her lower lip and sucked in her breath, as though debating what to say next. Just like she used to do when they were kids. The last two months of their senior year, he’d known she was holding something back, hiding it from him. She was constantly censoring what she told him until it was too late.

  “Where’s the rest of the family?” Gavin looked around the parking lot, apprehension crawling up his back. “I’d sure like to meet the man who kept you away from Old Brookfield all these years.”

  “My daddy’s—”

  “He’s in New York,” Jordan said quickly. “In the city. Working.”

  Gavin stilled. There was something about the way Jordan cut off her daughter that gave him pause. Maybe life with What’s-his-face wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Just as well. Bumping into Jordan and her daughters was tough enough, but seeing the lucky son of a bitch who married her would be more than he could handle at the moment. He was keeping his cool so far, but meeting Mr. McKenna would probably push Gavin over the edge of cool and into “holy crap, this sucks” territory.

  “Well, I heard he’s quite a guy,” Gavin said in an overly polite tone. “Big money man from Wall Street, if I’m not mistaken?”

  Those dark eyes of hers grew stormy. They narrowed, and she met his challenging stare with one of her own. Fury settled over her as her jaw set and her shoulders squared, ready for a fight. In that moment, Gavin saw the feisty girl he’d fallen in love with. The one who got right back on a horse she’d been thrown from, determined to keep going at any cost. Nothing had ever stopped Jordan when she set her mind to something. Her tenacity was one of the qualities he loved most. She was as stubborn as she was beautiful, and obviously nothing had changed.

  “Yes, quite a guy,” she said in a barely audible tone. “Listen, it’s been nice bumping into you like this, and I’d love to catch up, but the girls and I have to go see Principal Drummond.” She took the girls by the hands and headed toward the doors of the school. “Excuse me or we’re going to be late.”

  Gavin’s gut clenched as he finally realized why Jordan was here at the school with the girls. He gripped his helmet tighter but remained calm on the surface. Hope, mixed with a healthy amount of fear, glimmered in the back of his mind.

  “So you’re not only here for a visit?”

  “No.” Jordan stopped in the open doorway, and time seemed to stretch on forever. So many unspoken words floated between them that Gavin practically drowned in the swell. “We’re home.”

  The three vanished into the brick building. The sun flashed off the glass as the doors clanked shut behind them, and Gavin squinted to block out the light. Walking back to his truck, he shed his heavy fireproof coat and let the cold, hard reality of the situation settle over him like a lead blanket. Jordan, her daughters, and by all accounts, Jordan’s husband were moving back to town.

  They would be here every single day reminding Gavin of what could have been…but wasn’t.

  Chapter 2

  Jordan pulled to a stop in front of Mrs. Morgan’s flower shop. In the rearview mirror, she glimpsed the peaceful, sleeping faces of her daughters. The girls had dozed off almost the second they pulled out of the school parking lot. Given the past couple of days, Jordan couldn’t blame them. She was pretty damn tired herself.

  Letting out a sigh, she stared at the lovely, little storefront without really seeing it. Who was she kidding? She hadn’t really seen a damn thing since running into Gavin in front of the school two hours ago. That moment, the one she’d dreaded for fifteen years, had finally happened—and it had been like an out-of-body experience.

  For a split second, she’d had the urge to run up to him and jump into his arms. To bury her face in the crook of his neck and breathe him in, to inhale the scent of soap and firewood that was so distinctly his. All these years later she could still smell it if she closed her eyes. But when she saw that hurt, hard look on his face, Jordan had known it was too late. The damage had been done and there was no undoing it. She was the one who had run off, so how could she blame him for finding solace in the arms of someone else?

  A few days after she’d left all those years ago, Jordan had finally broken down and called her friend Suzanne only to find out that Gavin had already taken up with Missy Oakland. That horrid, bitchy girl had been chasing him all through high school, and apparently Gavin wasn’t as uninterested as he always claimed he was. When Jordan heard that, the last thing she was going to do was come home. So she stayed in the city. Got a waitressing job and eventually a crappy apartment that was one step above the youth hostel she’d stayed in at first.

  In her fantasies, the ones she let herself play out while falling asleep at night, she imagined Gavin pulling her into his arms and covering her mouth with his. Offering forgiveness without asking her for an explanation, even though he clearly deserved one. Telling her how sorry he was for betraying her and asking her if they could start over.

  No. It was too late for apologies now.

  The real moment—the one she’d survived and by some miracle hadn’t vomited in the middle of—had been far less romantic than her fantasy. She hadn’t been welcomed home by a boy who loved her, but by a man who was still painfully angry after all these years. Not even that charming, dimpled grin, the one that awakened a swarm of butterflies in her belly, could hide the hurt that edged his pale green eyes.

  His thick, dark hair had been cut short and there was a whisper of gray at the temples now. That ruggedly handsome face had grown even more attractive with the years that had passed, but when his square jaw set and the smile faded, the hurt remained. And that pain she saw in his eyes, that was on her. It was one hundred percent her own damn fault.

  It was no surprise that Gavin was still angry, both that she’d left town without a word to him or anyone else, and that she’d never come back. He wasn’t alone. She was pretty pissed off herself and easily recalled the pain of his betrayal. After all, she’d only been gone for a few days and apparently Gavin started screwing the first girl he could!

  Nice. So much for true love, Jordan thought.

  He’d obviously never really loved her, so why the hell was he so angry with her? Jeez.

  Jordan scoffed and tapped the steering wheel with her fingers. Right. Fine. He could be furious with her, but he sure as hell hadn’t cornered the market on it. She was still pretty annoyed herself.

  Eyes closed, she let the cool breeze of the air-conditioning wash over her, wishing it could wash away the mistakes she’d made. There had been so many.

  That was the first time she’d run away.

  Now here she was, fifteen years later, doing the same thing. Running. Starting over. Jordan looked over her shoulder at her sleeping daughters and fought the tears that threatened to fall. It wasn’t only about her anymore. They were all starting over.

  Letting out a huff, she rested her forehead on knuckles wrapped in a death grip around the leather-bound steering wheel. What in the world was she doing back here anyway? Even when she was signing the rental papers for the cozy house on the beach, that voice in the back of her mind had questioned her decision. She had plenty of money from the divorce settlement; she could have gone anywhere. No matter what scenarios she ran through her head, she always came back to Old Brookfield…to Gavin.

  A knock on the driver’s side window pulled her from her thoughts and had her yelping out loud. Hand to her chest, she snapped her head toward the window and came face-to-face with Maddy Morgan. Maddy, her oldest and dearest friend, grinned and waved like the bubbly, beauti
ful woman she’d always been. The familiarity of it made Jordan’s heart ache.

  Putting a finger to her lips, Jordan pointed a thumb toward the backseat, praying the girls wouldn’t be woken up. They might need the sleep, but Jordan needed the quiet. Without making a sound, she got out of the car and closed the door. She’d barely turned around when Maddy gathered her up in one of the giggly, bouncy hugs that Jordan loved and had missed so much. Dressed in her signature casual style—a tank top, shorts, and flip-flops—her old friend was a sight for sore eyes.

  “I can’t believe you’re really back,” Maddy said through an excited laugh. She pulled back and squeezed Jordan’s arms before releasing her with a playful huff. Pushing her sunglasses onto her head, she pursed her lips. “How the hell is it possible that you still look like you did in high school?”

  “Hardly.” Jordan folded her arms over her breasts. “Actually, I didn’t think it was possible to feel this old. My poor daughters have an old woman for a mother and a son of a bitch for a father.”

  “They have you and that’s what matters.” A warm breeze fluttered over them, making Maddy’s curly, dark hair whip around her head. Her light blue eyes flicked to the girls and her smile widened. “Did you get all settled in at the house? I left something for the girls in their bedroom.”

  “Yes.” Jordan nodded, recalling the giddy expressions on their faces when they found the two baskets full of beach toys waiting for them in the pretty pink-and-white bedroom. “You must have spent a fortune on those. Do you always blow part of your rental commission on gifts for your clients’ kids?”

  “You’re more than a client and you know it.” Maddy winked. “We’ve known each other for twenty years. Hell, when I moved to town in ninth grade, you were the only girl who would even talk to me.”