by Jill Shalvis
“Isn’t trying to give you a half million dollar property a big enough statement?”
“I see you with your brother, and there’s such longing in your face. Do you ever tell him? I see you brushing your father’s horse even when it would bite you on the ass if it could, and still, you keep trying with the stubborn thing. I see you look at me, and I’ve got to tell you, Jake, there’s so much in one look that you take my breath, but you don’t say anything. When we’re in bed at night, our bodies sing together, and I…” She closed her eyes and felt a dreamy smile cross her lips. “I’ve never felt happier.” She opened her eyes and looked at him. “But you never say a word about how you feel about us.”
“I’m leaving—”
“Yes, I know. But as you’ve said, there are planes. Cars. Phones. E-mail.” She touched his face, wanting so badly to reach him. “I just want to hear what you’re feeling,” she said again, more softly, and held her breath. “About the ranch, the people in it. Me.”
He looked at her, then closed his eyes. “I remember what it was like to have Tucker in my life. I mean really in my life. God, I miss that. And that damn ornery horse over there, my father’s horse…looking at him I feel such regret that it’s like a stab in my chest.” She still had her hand over his heart, and he covered it with his. “How am I doing?”
Through a veil of tears, she nodded. “Good. Now me.”
“And you…”
“Yes? I drive you crazy? I make you mad? I make you want to rip all my clothes off? Pick one, Jake.”
“All of the above, most definitely,” he assured her. “But there’s something else. A biggie.”
“Spit it out then.”
“I love you.”
Her own heart tumbled. “Oh, Jake.”
“I know. It’s a complication.”
“It’s going to be okay.”
“Really?” He shoved his fingers in his hair and looked nearly destroyed. “How?”
“Because I love you back. With all my heart.”
He stared at her. “You do?”
Poor, poor baby. “Oh, yes. Very much. You’re really not going to sell the Blue Flame?”
“I want you to have it. You should have had it all along.”
She took the two pieces of the quitclaim deed back from him, and ripped them into a hundred more, scattering them on the wind. “The only way I want this ranch is to share it with you. Yes, I know you’re leaving, and I don’t care. I have a big fat loan now. I can help you.”
“Callie, no—”
“I’ll fly to see you as often as I can.”
“You’d come and spend part of your time in San Diego?”
“To be with you, I’d live on the moon.”
He looked flummoxed, and a little unsteady, and as if his legs wouldn’t hold him any longer, he sank to his knees. “You…really love me.”
“Yes.” She dropped to her knees as well, and cupped his face. “Think you can handle it?”
“I can handle it.” He kissed her long and deep, and then pulled back looking very seriously into her eyes. “I have a confession to make. Don’t laugh.”
“I won’t.”
“I do love you, and believe me, those words are quite new to my vocabulary, but you’re going to have to share me.”
“You’re not sleeping with your receptionist—Sorry,” she said at his shock. “Too much of the ex-husband today. Go ahead. You love me, and you also love…”
He muttered something, and she shook her head. “Sorry, Jake. I couldn’t hear you.”
“That stupid horse over there. I love that stupid horse.” He pointed to Moe.
She bit her lip.
“You promised not to laugh.”
“I’m smiling. Quite different from laughing.” She hugged him. “Oh, Jake, you’re so sweet.”
“Sweet?”
“You are.”
“Well, then, I should tell you, I also love this land. I can’t believe it. But I actually want to live here, at least part of the time. I was thinking…”
She trailed a finger down his chest. “What?”
“Thinking—” He grabbed her finger. “That maybe I could teach every other class of recruits, and be here in between.”
She went still. “The best of both worlds?”
“Only if you’re in both of those worlds.” He brushed her hair away from her face, traced her earlobe with his finger. “What do you think?”
“It won’t be easy.” She stood up, gave him a hand and pulled him up, too. “I’m bossy. And I like to have things my own way.”
A smile tugged at his mouth. “I’ve noticed. But I have my own bad habits, you know. I can be broody, especially if I don’t get sex once a day.”
“Hmmm…” Her heart surged with such hope and love, it almost hurt. “Then we’d better make sure to sleep together every night.”
He stroked her jaw. “That sounds like a commitment.”
“I’m not the commitment phobe here, Jake.”
His other hand came up, cupping her face. “I find that particular fear has left me.”
Her breath caught. “Is that right?”
He looked down at Richard’s stone and nodded. “Yeah.” He brought her hand up to his mouth. “Do you ever talk to him?”
“Richard? Sometimes.”
He touched the stone, then did something he’d never really done before. Talked to his father. “I’m sorry I never told you when you were alive, Dad, because you would have gotten a kick out of this, but you were right. You had it all here.” He opened his arms to Callie. “Right here.”
She moved right into them, there being no place on earth she’d rather be.
Epilogue
Six months later
I can’t believe we’re doing this.” Jake turned over once, and then again, in a useless attempt at comfort. Max, one of Tiger’s soft brown puppies, took advantage of the moment to lick his face. Laughing, he pushed the not-so-little-anymore puppy away.
Callie smiled and stroked the excited puppy. “You promised if I made it through your firefighter training course, you’d try camping again.” She spoke patiently, even lovingly, but she had a wide grin on her face, assuring Jake she was enjoying every moment of this.
This being Jake inside a small tent, inside an even smaller sleeping bag with a wild puppy, trying to get comfortable. “I think there’re a thousand rocks right beneath me.”
“Big baby,” she teased.
Back in Arizona after a training session in San Diego, she’d dragged him out here in the Dragoons with far too much glee. With a wicked smile, she picked up Max, set him right outside the tent, attaching his collar to a long lead. “Be good for a few minutes,” she said, and zipped the tent shut. Still smiling, she pulled off her sweatshirt. Her T-shirt went next, leaving her in a leopard push-up bra. While Jake’s mouth went dry, she shimmied off her jeans.
Her panties matched her bra.
“I charged them,” she said a little breathlessly, and climbed into the sleeping bag with him. On top of him.
His hands went on a tour of her body. “I love your Visa.”
“Actually, it was yours.”
He laughed. “Why don’t we just get one Visa together, dedicated to your lingerie issues. I have no problem donating to the cause.”
“One Visa?” She eyed him carefully. “That sounds…serious.”
“Uh-huh.” He swept the hair from her face and just lay back soaking up the incredible feeling of having her warm, soft body draped over his. “And while we’re at it, why don’t we use the same last name?”
She looked at him, her eyes huge. “Are you asking me to marry you?”
He traced her jaw. “How about it, Callie? You’re already my lover, my best friend, and most definitely my better half. What do you say you make an honest man out of me and make me a husband as well?”
Her eyes shimmered brilliantly, but her voice, when she spoke, was light with teasing. “I’m not sure. I want a
husband who can appreciate the finer points of the life out here—including camping.”
“Make you a deal.” He rolled with her, until she was tucked beneath him. “We sleep like this, and I’ll camp every single night.”
“Now there’s a deal I just can’t pass up.” She laughed and rolled again, and they tangled for a while, somehow losing all of Jake’s clothes as well, which worked for the both of them.
“So, the future Mrs. Rawlins…”
She touched his face. “Yes, Mr. Rawlins?”
“I love you.”
“Love you too, Jake.”
The End
Zoe is a brilliant pastry chef—who’s somehow botched all her opportunities for success.
Jack is an ex-hotshot wildfire fighter who’s back to taming the fires of a small town.
When these old friends reunite in Lucky Harbor, can they handle the heat?
Please turn this page for a preview of
Always on My Mind.
Chapter 1
Saying that she went to the Firefighters’ Charity Breakfast for pancakes was like saying she watched baseball for the game—when everyone knew that you watched baseball for the guys in the tight uniform pants.
But today Leah Sullivan really did want pancakes. She also wanted her grandma to live forever, world peace, and hey, while she was making wishes, she wouldn’t object to being sweet-talked out of her clothes sometime this year.
But those were all issues for another day. Mid-August was hinting at an Indian summer for the Pacific Northwest. The morning was warm and heading toward hot as she walked to the already crowded pier. The people of Lucky Harbor loved a get-together, and if there was food involved—and cute firefighters to boot—well, that was just a bonus.
Leah accepted a short stack of pancakes from Tim Denison, a firefighter from Station #24. He was a rookie, fresh from the academy and at least five years younger than her, which didn’t stop him from sending her a wink. She took in his beachy, I-belong-on-a-Gap-ad-campaign appearance and waited for her good parts to flutter.
They didn’t.
For reasons unknown, her good parts were on vacation and had been for months.
Okay, so not for reasons unknown. But not wanting to go there, not today, she blew out a breath and continued down the length of the pier.
Picnic tables had been set up, most of them full of other Lucky Harbor locals supporting the firefighters’ annual breakfast. Leah’s friend Ali Winters was seated and halfway through a huge stack of pancakes, eyeing the food line as if considering getting more.
Leah plopped down beside her. “You eating for two already?”
“Bite your tongue.” Ali aimed her fork at her and gave her a pointed don’t mess with me look. “I’ve only been with Luke for two months. Pregnancy isn’t anywhere on the to do list yet. I’m just doing my part to support the community.”
“By eating two hundred pancakes?”
“Hey, the money goes to the senior center.”
There was a salty breeze making a mess of Leah’s and Ali’s hair, but it didn’t dare disturb the woman sitting on the other side of Ali. Nothing much disturbed the cool-as-a-cucumber Aubrey Wellington.
“I bet sex is on your to do list,” Aubrey said, joining their conversation.
Ali gave a secret smile.
Aubrey narrowed her eyes. “I could really hate you for that smile.”
“You should hate me for this smile.”
“Luke’s that good, huh?”
Ali sighed dreamily. “He’s magic.”
“Magic’s just an illusion,” Aubrey said, and licked the syrup off her fork while managing to somehow look both beautifully sophisticated and graceful.
Back in their school days, Aubrey had been untouchable, tough as nails, and Leah hadn’t been anywhere even in the vicinity of her league. Nothing much had changed there. She looked down at herself and sucked in her stomach.
“There’s no illusion when it comes to Luke,” Ali told Aubrey. “He’s one hundred percent real. And all mine.”
“Well, now you’re just being mean,” Aubrey said. ”And that’s my arena. Leah, what’s with the expensive shoes and cheap haircut?”
Leah put a hand to her choppy layers and Aubrey smiled at Ali, like See? That’s how you do mean…
Most of Leah’s money went towards her school loans and helping to keep her grandma afloat, but she did have one vice. Okay, two, but being addicted to Pinterest wasn’t technically a vice. Her love of shoes most definitely was. She’d gotten today’s strappy leather wedges from a street fair in Paris, and they’d been totally worth having to eat apples and peanut butter for a week. “They were on sale,” she said, clicking them together like she was Dorothy in Oz. “They’re knock-offs,” she admitted.
Aubrey sighed. “You’re not supposed to say that last part. It’s not as fun to be mean when you’re nice.”
“But I am nice,” Leah said.
“I know,” Aubrey said. “And I’m trying to like you anyway.”
The three of them were an extremely unlikely trio, connected by a cute, quirky, old Victorian building in downtown Lucky Harbor. The building was older than God, currently owned by Aubrey’s uncle, and divided into three shops. There was Ali’s floral shop, Leah’s Grandma Elsie’s bakery, and last but not least, a neglected bookstore that Aubrey had been making noises about taking over since her job at Town Hall had gone south a few weeks back.
Neither Ali nor Leah were sure yet if having Aubrey in the building every day would be fun or a nightmare. But regardless, Aubrey knew her path. So did Ali.
Leah admired the hell out of that. Especially since she’d never known her path. She’d known one thing, the need to get out of Lucky Harbor—and she had. At age seventeen she’d left and had rarely looked back.
But she was back now, putting her pastry chef skills to good use helping her grandma out with the bakery while she recovered from knee surgery. The problem was, Leah had gotten out of the habit of settling into one place.
Not quite true, said a little voice inside her. If not for a string of spectacularly bad decisions, she’d have finished French culinary school. Or not embarrassed herself on the reality TV show Sweet Wars. Or…
Don’t go there.
Instead, she scooped up a big bite of fluffy pancakes and concentrated on their delicious goodness rather than her own screw-ups. Obsessing over her bad decisions was something she saved for the deep dark of night.
“Jack’s at the griddle,” Ali noted.
Leah twisted around to look at the cooking setup. Fire station #24 was one of four that serviced the county, and thanks to the Olympic Mountains at their back with their million acres of forest, all four stations were perpetually busy.
Lieutenant Jack Harper was indeed manning the griddle. He was tall and broad shouldered, and looked like a guy who could take on anything that came his way. This was a good thing since he ran station #24. He could be as intimidating as hell when he chose to be, which wasn’t right now since he was head-bopping to some beat in his headphones that only he could hear. Knowing him, it was some good, old-fashioned, ear-splitting hard rock.
Not too far from him, leashed to a bench off to the side of the cooking area sat the biggest Great Dane Leah had ever seen. He was white with black markings that made him look like a Dalmatian wannabe, and his name was Kevin.
Kevin had been given to a neighboring fire station where he’d remained until he’d eaten one too many expensive hoses, torn up one too many beds, and chewed dead one too many pairs of boots. The rambunctious one-year-old had then been put up for adoption.
The only problem, no one had wanted what was by then a hundred-and-fifty pound nuisance. Kevin had been headed for the Humane Society when Jack, always the protector, always the savior, had stepped in a few weeks back and saved the dog.
Just like he’d done for Leah more times than she could count.
As far as it went for Kevin, it’d become a great source of ent
ertainment for the entire town that Jack Harper II, once the town terror himself—at least to mothers of teenage daughters everywhere—was now in charge of the latest town terror.
Another firefighter stepped up to the griddle, apparently to relieve Jack because Jack loaded a plate for himself and stepped over to Kevin. He flipped the dog a sausage, which Kevin caught in midair with one snap of his huge jaws. The sausage instantly vanished and Kevin licked his lips, staring intently at Jack’s plate as if he could make more sausage fly into his mouth by wish alone.
Jack laughed and crouched down to talk to the dog, a movement that had his shirt riding up, revealing low-riding BDUs—his uniform pants—a strip of taut, tantalizing male skin, and just the hint of a perfect ass.
On either side of Leah, both Ali and Aubrey gave lusty sighs. Leah completely understood; she could feel her own lusty sigh catching in her throat but she squelched it. They were in the F-zone, she and Jack. Friends. Friends didn’t do lust, or if they did, they also did the smart, logical thing and ignored it. Still, she felt a smile escape her at the contagious sound of Jack’s laughter. Truth was, he’d been making her smile since the sixth grade, when she’d first moved to Lucky Harbor.
As if sensing her appraisal, Jack lifted his head. His dark mirrored sunglasses prevented her from catching exactly where his eyes landed, but she knew he was looking right at her because he arched a dark brow.
And on either side of her, Ali and Aubrey sighed again.
“Really?” Leah asked them.
“Well, look at him,” Aubrey said unapologetically. “He’s hot, he’s got rhythm, and not just the fake white-boy kind either. And for a bonus, he’s gainfully employed. It’s just too bad I’m off men forever.”
“Forever’s a long time,” Ali said, and Leah’s gut cramped at the thought of the beautiful, blonde Aubrey going after Jack.
But Jack was still looking at Leah. Those glasses were still in the way but he didn’t have to remove them for her to know that his dark eyes were framed by thick, black lashes and the straight, dark lines of his eyebrows. Or that the right one was sliced through by a thin scar, which he’d gotten at age fourteen when he and his cousin Ben had stolen his mom’s car and driven it into a fence.