Slow Burn (Forbidden Heat Book 3)

by Bella Winters

  I kissed her and snuggled her closely to me. “I will sing to you every single day if I have to just to remind you how much I love you, baby.”

  I held my sweet bride in my arms as everyone around us cheered us on.

  “I knew there was something going on with you two,” Max said to me when I asked him to be my best man. “I couldn’t prove it, but I knew there was something.”

  “You didn’t know anything. No one did,” I gloated. It was nice having Max and Richie there with me and to have their blessings. I did notice that Chief Walker and a few of the others from the old station didn’t even respond to the invitation. I could tell that they were bothered by the lies, which was unfortunate. But when you used a silly rule to control people, you shouldn’t be surprised when they deceive you. That was how I felt about it.

  Chief Walker was an honorable man in most respects, but by not even responding to the invitation and from some of the rumors I’d heard from the others, he was very angry. “Yeah, he kept talking about betrayal and even staged a whole meeting about it,” Cody said when I asked him. I had to shake my head and laugh. Shelly did, too. It actually made everything seem so funny now. We’d been so scared of being found out because of the power this man had over our lives. That was ridiculous. In fact, this fear had almost cost me everything. It had scared Shelly into running away, and it had kept me from knowing about my daughter for the first two years of her life. It made me angry and it filled me with total derision for Walker. That bastard had caused a lot of pain by pretending to care about others. At the end of the day, it all boiled down to his own fears and inadequacies. He wanted to make himself look like an even more effective chief. That was it.

  I had to let it go. There was no point in dwelling on the past. It would just eat you alive with anger. I wouldn’t forget and I would not forgive, but I would stop putting my mental and emotional energies on this. That was one thing I could promise myself.

  It wasn’t long before Shelly and I had our first dance as husband and wife. She looked so amazing. It wasn’t just the physical beauty, the clothes, her makeup, and her hair that did it. No, it was her glow. She was truly glowing with life and energy. We both were I believed. At least, I felt like I was. I finally had everything in my life I’d ever wanted, everything I ever thought could make me happy.

  “So, here is to the next step, baby,” I said.

  “Yes, to the next seventy years or so,” Shelly laughed.

  “Seventy? Oh, I’m living may more years than that. I’m not stopping at one hundred. I was thinking more like one fifty, something like that.”

  “One fifty? Really? Ok, as long as you keep those abs around, I’ll accept that,” Shelly teased.

  “Oh, these abs aren’t going anywhere,” I said. “You can see that.”

  I kissed her and hugged her tightly against me. Everything had worked out perfectly for the two of us. I considered myself very lucky. When Shelly went missing, I searched high and low exhaustively, but she didn’t want me to find her. That was obvious, and of course I had no idea why. There were a zillion possible reasons floating around in my head about why she had left, including the idea she might be pregnant, but of course I told myself that she would never do that. I had to admit the idea that she was capable of going to such lengths to keep a secret could have made me nervous, but I understood her mind and the reasoning behind it. She thought she was trying to protect us. That was normal. But we had moved past all of that. We knew each other enough now that we would always be perfectly honest with each other.

  I had faith that Shelly would uphold her end of the bargain. I felt so blessed to be married to her now. We had the strongest, most loving family. It was just the three of us, but I thought there would definitely be more babies in our future. I hadn’t talked to Shelly about it yet, but that was something that I definitely wanted. I’d always dreamt of having a big family.

  We finished the reception and then went back to our house to get ready to head to the airport. Lucy was going to take care of Amber for the next week while Shelly and I enjoyed ourselves a nice honeymoon. We had decided to go to Paris. Neither of us had ever done much real traveling, and it seemed to be a popular destination that we could cross off the bucket list.

  When we were in the car, Shelly placed her hand on mine. “I love you so much. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that we are always as happy as we can be.”

  “Right back at you, sweetie.”

  Epilogue

  Shelly

  “Oh, I think ate enough to kill a horse,” Gary said as he collapsed on the couch.

  We’d just been to some dancing and then dinner afterwards at a great restaurant just down the road. I could not remember the name of the place to save my life, though. The two of us had been in Paris for several days, taking in the sights, doing as much touristy stuff as possible, and meeting some great people as well. The culture was fun and interesting.

  I was dead tired now, though. But I was not quite finished with the evening. Our suite was excellent. We had saved long and hard to afford the honeymoon of our dreams and the most important part of that was the honeymoon suite I thought. It had to be big and spacious. It needed to have all of the amenities of home, plus the extras. Ours did.

  We had the big screen television, the pool table, the sauna, and the Jacuzzi as well. All of those things had been put to good use the past several days by us. That was the point of a real vacation, I thought. You wanted to leave as much of the old life behind as you possibly could and live like the rich and famous for a bit. It was destroying our little nest egg of savings, but with both of us working we’d be able to save that back in no time. Amber was still small enough that the space of our one story house was fine for us at the time being. Though we would soon be expecting an addition to the family…

  Gary had no idea, yet. I’d known since two days before the wedding, but I’d chosen to wait until the right moment to tell him. I knew that he was going to be thrilled. He’d always wanted a large family, so the more kids around, the merrier for him. I was fine with that as long as we were able to separate out the ages a bit. I had no aspirations to have three kids under the age of five. That just sounded like a lot of insanity. I felt it would be better for the development of the children to separate them out a little as well.

  “Wow, someone is beat,” I said. “Are you feeling the effects of father time already?”

  Gary looked at me and laughed. “That’s not even right. I’m fine. I’m only a year older than you, remember that.”

  “I do. You never let me forget it,” I said.

  “Our age is fine.”

  “I’m aware, but thirty is one of those ugly ages. It means you are past the official screw off phase of life. It means you are expected to be mature and adult at all times. That’s a lot of pressure.”

  “Nah, I disagree. I don’t care about fake social constructs such as that. I’m going to act as goofy as I can for as long as I can. I do whatever makes me happy. That is all.”

  “Well, that is one of the reasons I love you so much. You give me a license to be a jackass.”

  Gary laughed. “Yeah, I guess I do. But ideally, you should give yourself that license.”

  I chuckled and ran my hand through my hair.

  “It is so sexy when you do that,” Gary said.

  “Oh, you think so?” I asked.

  “Yeah, everything you do is sexy,” he replied. “That is just something innate inside of you.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “You as well. You may not realize it, and I know you hate it when I give you those compliments, but you are an extremely sexy man. I’m just worried I’m going to be competing for your affections from all of your rock star groupies.”

  “What groupies? I put an album on the internet. No one knows who I am. I’m hardly getting any views anyway.”

  “It’s just a matter of time,” I said. “People will find you.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t real
ly care. I didn’t do it for people. I did it for me. Honestly, it’s the thing that got me through when you were gone. I poured my heart and soul into that music, into that album. Without that, I’m not sure what I would have done.”

  “I know. I’ve listened to it so many times. It’s brilliant.”

  “Thanks,” Gary said. “I’m glad you like it, and it will give you a deeper understanding of how I was feeling during that time.”

  “It does. I hate myself a little bit more every time I listen to it, but the music is so beautiful that I can’t help myself. I am so sorry for all I’ve put you through, baby.”

  Gary held me close. “Stop thinking about it. That is all in the past. We’ve moved on. This album doesn’t represent me anymore. It just represents a time in my life. That’s all. And now I can work on new music to represent the current time in my life. The current time is wonderful.”

  “It’s even more wonderful than you know,” I said.

  He got a puzzled look on his face. “What do you mean?”

  I smiled and held him. Looking into his eyes, I said, “I’m pregnant.”

  Gary didn’t say anything for a moment. He just stared into me. Tears formed in the corner of his eyes and he wiped them clean as if he was trying to restore his vision. “You are? Really?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I wanted to surprise you. I went to the doctor last week to confirm. I’m pregnant.”

  Gary kissed me hard on the mouth and held me to his chest. “Baby, I’m so happy. Wow… I… I just can’t believe it.”

  “I love you, so much,” I said. “You are the most amazing husband and father. Our children are so lucky to have you in their lives.”

  “Baby, you are amazing in every single way. From the moment I met you, I knew that there was something very special about you. All of this happened the way it did for a reason, and I believe that we are just now starting to see what those reasons really are. The meaning behind them is coming to the front. And I couldn’t be happier. I’m truly the luckiest man in the entire world. No one could ever convince me otherwise.”

  He kissed me softly on the lips and I wrapped my arms around him returning the kiss deeper. Without saying a word, Gary carried me to the bedroom and laid me down on the bed.

  There he began to make love to me, sweet, loving, and full of life. Our lives had really begun.

  I hope you enjoyed reading Slow Burn. If you liked this one, then you would definitely love my other best seller and Amazon TOP 100 Book - Burning with Desire. In the following pages, I have included an excerpt from the same. So, keep reading!

  Author’s Note

  Thank you to all my readers, especially those who are reading my work for the first time. I know there are so many books to choose from these days, and I am glad and thankful that you all chose to spend a day or two reading mine.

  If you have a minute—or even, say, like 30-40 seconds—please take a moment to leave a review on Amazon for SLOW BURN. Reviews help indie authors so much!

  XO, Bella

  Excerpt

  I hired her to help my daughter sleep easy,

  But now I want her in my bed!

  Julie: my daughter’s new nanny and my …

  Damn, this is so wrong,

  Give yourself a break Ricky.

  She’s your employee and so much younger and…innocent.

  But what if I want to claim her innocence,

  What if her love warms my heart,

  What if her curves ignite that flame of passion once again!

  And what if my daughter is falling in love with her too.

  But just when I think my damaged past is over,

  And never again going to haunt me,

  She disappears…

  Would the strength of my love ever bring her back?

  Would she ever have the guts to stand up against her own family?

  Ricky

  You never know which call will end up being your last.

  The adrenaline flooded throughout my body as always when this call came in. I’d been sitting around the table in the lounge playing some cards with my coworkers/friends and really enjoying the nice, relaxing day when the bell started ringing and we had to grab our gear and rush to the trucks. It had been a relatively slow week in the fire game, but you could never really let yourself relax and think that everything was going to stay that way for long. That’s the way it was, the nature of the beast. Sometimes we would go for days without a single fire and then we’d have a week where we’d have one or two calls a day.

  Regardless, when the call finally came in, your chest felt like it was being gripped tightly by some invisible force and you would experience the fear that most people would never ever think of. They were lucky. It was the worst kind of fear. You were up against a formidable enemy, a brute force of nature, and you didn’t know if you would get out alive. And you weren’t sure if the people who needed your help would get out alive either.

  I tried not to overthink as I grabbed my gear and put it on before heading hastily to the truck. But sometimes fear just grabbed you and it wouldn’t let go. That was a dangerous situation. In training and in practice we learned to respect the enemy, but never fear it. Fear would paralyze you, it would muddle your brain, make you second guess yourself, and make you hesitate. Those things cost lives. And one day it would cost you your own.

  I couldn’t have that. I had Zoe to think about. Sweet Zoe, my eight year old daughter, my angel. I was all she had since her mother died a few years ago. Amanda… the love of my life. It had been over two years since she’d succumbed to the cancer that had ravaged her body. My sweet wife was gone, laid to rest, leaving Zoe and me alone. I’d tried to do the best I could for Zoe on my own, and most of the time I thought I did a really good job.

  “We’re almost there! Get in the game!” Patterson, our foreman yelled. He was leading the charge on the scene today, which basically meant he directed everything right down to the most subtle of movements. He was basically the coach of the team and if you wanted to keep working and you wanted to stay alive, you better listened to what the thirty nine year veteran firefighter had to say without a question.

  When we got to the blaze, even I was shocked by the magnitude of it. The entire house was up. Bright fire illuminated the windows pouring from the openings, practically melting the wood beneath, each mass of fire writhing in the wind like some kind of banshee wailing to be set free.

  The truck stopped and we all hopped out. There was a crowd of people standing in front of the house - watching, and some screaming. It was important that we zeroed in quickly on the people who might have actually lived there. It was usually easy to tell since they were emotional and visibly upset typically.

  Quickly, one young woman about twenty-five or so ran up to us screaming. “Amber is still in there! I can’t find her anywhere!”

  “Do you know where she might be? How old is she?”

  “She is twenty. I don’t know! I fell asleep!”

  The woman was screaming so loud that I could barely make out what she was saying. But I had my orders. The rest I would figure out along the way. A couple of us grabbed an axe and chopped down the door. It was so hot that it splintered easily. As it did so, a flood of black smoke began pouring out the door. I adjusted my gear and ran inside, doing my best to see through my flame retardant goggles.

  I tried to keep my head low as I entered. I was inside the living room. Most of the fire seemed confined on the floor above, but I could see the ceiling starting to give way. We had to move fast. Without waiting for a backup, I hurried up the stairs expecting each step to give under my foot and my body to go crashing through the wreckage of the staircase. But I made it to the top in one piece.

  “Ricky! Wait!” Toby Guiger yelled from below.

  “We don’t have time!” I yelled back. It is safety 101 that we don’t head off by ourselves during a rescue. This is how people get trapped and left behind. We work together as a unit, as a team in every sin
gle thing that we do. But if this girl was anywhere inside, we had to find her fast and we had to do it now. This fire was out of control, consuming everything in its path and turning to cinders.

  I knew the house would not be standing much longer.

  I glanced right and left and saw what appeared to be the bedrooms on the left side. “Amber! Are you there?” I screamed.

  I heard nothing as I kicked one of the doors. I anticipated that a wave of fire would come roaring out of the door at me at any moment, but so far I was being lucky. During a stressful time like this, you often had to rely on luck.

  The first door was a bathroom. I tried another. An office. Nobody there. Finally, I came to a bedroom. I didn’t see anyone at first. I was ready to move on, but then I heard a soft moan. I double checked and found a young woman lying down on the floor. She was propped slightly against the bed, as if she’d tried to get out but by the time she realized that there was a fire, the smoke had engulfed her too much.

  She might still be ok, but I had to get her out of there immediately.

  I knelt down and slumped her over my shoulders. Then I stood up under her weight to bring her out.

  Nearing the doorway, I suddenly heard loud cracks and flakes of plaster falling in front of me. I looked up and I could see flames engulfing the ceiling. Any second now it was going to collapse on us.

  I hurried out of the room. “Go! The ceiling is falling!” I yelled to Toby who was just at the top of the stairs coming to offer assistance. I hurried down the stairs with the girl on my back taking two at a time right on Toby’s heels.